Since the fall of the USSR, 30 years of wars involving Russia

From Chechnya to Syria to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been involved in several wars since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

On Monday, after months of tensions, the Russian president ordered his army to deploy to the breakaway “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, hours after recognizing their independence.

This announcement feeds the fear of an escalation in Ukraine, on whose borders Russia has more than 150,000 men according to Washington and Kiev (and up to 190,000 counting the separatists).

Two bloody wars in Chechnya

At the end of 1994, after having tolerated the de facto independence of Chechnya for three years, Moscow brought in its army to control this republic in the Russian Caucasus. Meeting fierce resistance, federal troops withdraw in 1996.

But in October 1999, at the urging of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, soon to be elected president, Russian forces re-enter Chechnya in an “anti-terrorist operation” after a series of attacks by Chechen independence fighters on the Russian Caucasian Republic of Dagestan and bloody attacks in Russia, attributed by Moscow to the Chechens.

In February 2000, Russia retakes the capital Grozny, devastated by Russian artillery and aviation. In 2009, the Kremlin decreed the end of its operation, leaving after these two conflicts tens of thousands of dead on both sides.

“Blitzkrieg” against Georgia

In the summer of 2008, Georgia launches a bloody military operation against South Ossetia, a pro-Russian separatist territory that has escaped Tbilisi’s control since the fall of the USSR and a war in the early 1990s.

Russia massively responds by sending troops to Georgian territory and in five days inflicts a severe defeat on this former Soviet republic. The fighting leaves hundreds dead.

Later, the Kremlin recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway province, and has maintained a strong military presence ever since. The West denounces a de facto occupation.

Conflict in Ukraine

In 2014, after the pro-European Union Maidan movement and President Victor Yanukovych’s flight to Russia, Moscow annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, an annexation not recognized by the international community.

Pro-Russian separatist movements are emerging in eastern Ukraine, in Donetsk and Lugansk, Donbas regions bordering Russia. The two republics proclaimed themselves, generating an intense armed conflict with the Ukrainian forces.

Kiev and Westerners accuse Russia of supporting the rebels by sending men and material. Moscow denies, and only recognizes the presence in Ukraine of Russian “volunteers”.

The conflict decreased in intensity after 2015 and the signing of the Minsk peace accords.

But since the end of 2021, Moscow has carried out large land, air and sea maneuvers around Ukrainian territory, deploying up to 150,000 men on its borders.

After months of tensions, Putin on Monday ordered his army to deploy to the breakaway “republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, hours after recognizing their independence.

Clashes in Ukraine have caused more than 14,000 deaths since 2014.

Intervention in Syria

Since 2015, Russia has had a military presence in Syria, in support of the forces of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The Russian military intervention has changed the course of the war and allowed the regime in Damascus to win decisive victories, and recover the ground lost to the rebels and the jihadists.

Moscow has two military bases in Syria: the Hmeimim airfield in the northwest of the country and in the port of Tartus, further south. More than 63,000 Russian military personnel have participated in the Syrian campaign.