National Guard of Georgia

The National Guard of Georgia is the gendarmerie and military reserve force branch of the Georgian Defence Forces. It was established on 20 December 1990, after President Zviad Gamsakhurdia ordered the creation of a national armed formation, and Tengiz Kitovani was appointed to head it. Built mainly from volunteers and from Georgian officers returning from Soviet service, it was the first national military formation in Soviet Georgia and later supplied the basis for the regular armed forces. Almost from its birth the Guard was drawn into politics: it split in August 1991 between supporters of Gamsakhurdia and of Kitovani, and its units fought in the Georgian Civil War and in the South Ossetian and Abkhazian conflicts of the early 1990s. It is tasked with civil affairs, public security, disaster response and support of military operations, and in January 2007 it consisted of 554 veteran personnel.