From National War to Transnational Conflict: Georgians Volunteers in Ukraine and Circulation of War in Post-Soviet Space

Abstract Book of the 3rd World Conference on Security Studies

Year: 2026

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From National War to Transnational Conflict: Georgians Volunteers in Ukraine and Circulation of War in Post-Soviet Space

Gabrielle Robineau

ABSTRACT:

This article examines the engagement of Georgian volunteers in the war in Ukraine as a case study of transnational conflict dynamics, with a specific focus on mobility patterns, network structures and cross-border circulations. It draws on an original dataset composed of interviews with combatants and their relatives, as well as a biographical database of Georgian volunteers engaged since 2014. The aim is to demonstrate that the war in Ukraine can not be reduced to a territorial conflict between States but should also be understood as a transnational conflict space structured by combatant mobilities, transnational networks and post-soviet circulatory dynamics. Through the analysis of the profiles, networks and trajectories of Georgian volunteers, the study highlights the existence of interconnected military, politic, diasporic and socio-spatial circulations that facilitate armed engagement beyond national borders. It further shows that Ukraine functions as a nodal space within a broader post-soviet conflict system, where multiple conflict trajectories intersect and extend across borders. By introducing the concept of the circulation of war, the article proposes to interpret this war as a multi-territorial and network-driven phenomenon carried by non-State actors. Thus, it shifts the analytical focus away from the intimate and memorial dimensions of militarization toward the role of mobility, connectivity and transnational flows in the reconfiguration of contemporary conflict spaces.

Keywords: Circulation of War; Georgian Volunteer Fighters; Combatant Mobility; Transnational Conflicts; Transnational Networks