After Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, some Georgians were unable to sit and watch and rushed to join the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Men left a safe country for a country at war. George Shanidze was one of them. The 34-year-old drummer had never fought in a war, nor completed his military service. As an artist, he knew how to fly drones though, a valuable skill for this conflict. On February 28, 2022, he boarded a bus to Ukraine. He first joined the military base of the Georgian National Legion for two weeks—where all the newcomers were getting trained—and then operated drones in a now disbanded special unit, Zgard, for eight months. He returned to Georgia just over a year ago. This is his story.

During his childhood and teenage years, George experienced war vicariously through his relatives. There was always an uncle, a friend, someone’s grandmother who were more or less affected by it. For George, it’s clear that “the kids of the ‘90s are a fucked-up generation” due to the criminality, conflicts, power cuts and financial strain that characterize the decade after the Soviet collapse. He believes growing up in such a context, swaddled in stories of the wars that swept Georgia between 1991 and 1993—and later in 2008—eventually led him to take up arms. He was always convinced he would eventually end up on the battlefield. Little did he know on which frontline. 

“It’s either you kill, or you’re killed,”  a 2008 war veteran told him during the bus ride to Ukraine when George asked how to come to terms with killing a soldier, but a human being nonetheless. This is a mantra he holds on to; it sweeps away even the slightest doubt. When it comes to war, George invokes it in a very detached way, sometimes comparing it to a video game. He learned not to think about it too much because “that’s when you start to have troubles dealing with it.” If he somehow learned how to handle the unfathomable character of what he experienced during his time in Ukraine, when death takes one of his closest fellow fighters, keeping a distance becomes hard and not feeling deeply affected, impossible.

“It is so common to lose people in Ukraine, to see a good brother die, that at some point you stop feeling the pain. War becomes your work — and burying people one of your work tasks. You must deal with it. People die, a lot of people die. I buried so many people, more than a [man my age] should have.” he explains. “But this funeral, it killed me, really. Because Irakli was always the first to help. He was such a good guy.” 

George Shanidze and Irakli Kurtsikidze fought together in the Zgard unit, where they met. Irakli’s body was repatriated to Georgia on St. George’s day, November 23. The funeral was held in Rustavi on November 25.

What roused George’s enduring conviction that he would end up in war was the effectiveness of the propaganda in the first days of the war, he recalls. “It really pushed on my morals. In a few days the whole world realized how Russia was terrorizing Ukraine. I was reading everything on my Telegram channels, watching the news and boiling inside.”  When speaking about his motivation to leave, George explains that fighting in Ukraine means fighting against Russia and that Russia is a common enemy that must be fought, no matter where. He, who refuses to be linked to any political party, left in a hurry because he needed to see with his “own eyes” what was really happening on the frontlines. 

But he admits, in hindsight, that his decision was quite selfish, as it may also have been his “adrenaline’s addiction,” as he calls it, that gave him that extra edge to join the bus journey to Ukraine organized by the blogger Domenic Mango.

Three days before the funeral, George hosts Sergei Zaitsev, the father of a Ukrainian soldier from the Zgard unit. He came to Tbilisi on behalf of his son to pay a tribute to Irakli, the volunteer who died for his Ukrainian motherland. When George was in Ukraine, Sergei and his wife would host him and other soldiers during their days off or help them with logistics. 

In George’s kitchen in Saburtalo, they discuss how the absence of a reaction from the international community led to the current situation in Ukraine. Sergei compares Russia to a thief who gets caught red-handed but was never punished enough and therefore continues stealing. He mentions the 2008 war when the Russian-backed separatist forces shelled Georgia and the annexation of Crimea. He weaves together Georgia’s and Ukraine’s fate. 

Then, their conversation falls still. In a group chat, George received a folder containing four files and the very moment a flying shrapnel fatally hits Irakli.

They watch the footage together and see camouflaged infantrymen lie in trenches and converse with each other, a cloudy sky that hangs over their heads. They hear the sudden buzz that echoes through the air, followed by multiple blasts. Then the fall. They observe how the GoPro mounted on Irakli’s helmet films, in a dramatic close-up, the dark damp soil. They listen to the steps of a fellow soldier approaching, his repeated calls for a medic and the Russian slang word, pizda, he eventually shouts—and which translates to “cunt” but in this context, death. They hear another soldier shout, too. “Run away, run away, they are firing at us.” The recording goes on for hours, until a dying battery or a full SD card interrupts the feed before the body is retrieved.

The decision to leave for Ukraine not only affected George’s life; it also affected the lives of the relatives he left behind. A man told his ex-wife he died after reading the obituary of a similarly named soldier. During his time on the battlefield, he didn’t communicate much with his parents. “It’s harder for those who stayed behind. They don’t know what’s going on. They think you’re at war 24/7. They struggle. They think you’re being bombed but sometimes you’re just at the sauna in a city 10km away from the trenches.” His long-time friend Davit, pictured playing with George’s niece, went to Ukraine after George encouraged him to.

When George left his squad and Ukraine after an argument with his commander about his weed use, his plan wasn’t to return to his homeland. After his time in Ukraine, he was quite reluctant to the idea of coming back to Tbilisi and seeing the sheer number of Russian exiles who settled there. How would he stand Russian spoken at every corner? He also wanted to flee his country’s political and economic situation. Instead, he first attempted to start a new life from scratch in Germany, with fake Ukrainian papers bought for $300 on the black market. The attempt was not successful.

George says his war experience made him more assertive. It also made him realize he wants to stay in Georgia. “Georgia is a shitty country; it’s hard to live here. I don’t need to run away anywhere anymore. Moving to a different country means being confronted with new problems, specific to that new country, which you end up making yours,” he says. “Building the same network I have here would also take me at least three years. I don’t want to lose this time.” Coming to terms with this opened possibilities for him. He is now working to launch a music studio with fellow musicians and friends.

Despite leaving the battlefield a year and a half ago, war still permeates his daily life. It sneaks through the constant flow of push-notifications he receives from group chats; the tee-shirt “Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй (Russian warship, go fuck yourself)” he sometimes wears—which reminds him of the day him and his squad took back Snake Island—a strategic and symbolic position in the Black Sea; and the funerals he attends. He doesn’t regret coming back but he lives in constant worry for the comrades he left behind, those who continue to risk their lives in a conflict that has no end in sight.