He then received military training and served in the Russian army, fighting with distinction at the battle of Borodino against the French in 1812 and retiring with the rank of colonel in 1823.

[2] In the ensuing succession crisis, Ilia's elder half brother and regent for the vacant throne, David, vied with Heraclius II's son, Iulon.

[2] Prince Ilia, known in Russia as the tsarevich Ilya Georgyevich, was commissioned in March 1812 as a podporuchik of the Jäger Guards Regiment, with which he served in the war with Napoleon's Grande Armée.

During the 1813–14 campaign he served in the Reserve Army of General Dmitry Lobanov-Rostovsky in the vicinity of the besieged French fortress of Modlin in Poland.

In 1844, he translated from French into Georgian the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence as "ბაასი ორთა უჩინებულესთა ფილოსოფთა ევროპიისათა კლარკ და ლეიბნიცისა" ("The conversation between the two preeminent philosophers of Europe, Clarke and Leibniz").

[2] Prince Ilia married at Moscow in 1827 Princess Anastasia Grigoryevna Obolonskaya (Анастасия Григорьевна Оболонская; 25 September 1805 – 3 March 1885), a daughter of a wealthy nobleman Оболонские.