The 7 Wars Led by Vladimir Putin Since His Accession to Supreme Power in Russia 22 Years Ago.

Putin is not at his first attempt with the war against Ukraine.

Since he acceded to the supreme power in Russia at the very end of 1999, Vladimir Putin has never really allowed the Russian economy to take off. As proof, Russia's GDP in 2021 did not even place it in the top 10 of the world's most powerful economies.

On the other hand, if there is one area in which Vladimir Putin has done everything to restore Russia to its former glory, it is the military. Since he acceded to power, military investments have always taken precedence over everything else in Russia.

Even if it means sacrificing the standard of living of the Russian population who could have benefited from the tens of billions of dollars invested every year by Putin in an army that will have fought 7 wars during his reign. If I speak of reign here, it is because Vladimir Putin can now be considered a dictator. The last decisions he took at the beginning of the year 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia leave no doubt on the subject.

Here is an overview of the 7 wars conducted by the Russian army under the reign of Vladimir Putin.

1. Chechnya | 1999 - 2009

In September 1999, the Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, launched a “counter-terrorism operation” in Chechnya, whose separatists were accused of having committed attacks in Russia. Grozny, already ravaged by the war from 1994 to 1996, is being shelled by the Russian air force. The control of the region is locked by the installation in the power of Akhmad Kadyrov. The new Russian strongman then won the presidential election of 2000 in the first round.

2. Georgia | 2008

After clashes between South Ossetian separatists and the Georgian army, the latter intervened militarily. The conflict extends to Abkhazia. This state located between the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea, near the Russian city of Sochi, declared its independence from Georgia in 1992.

Russia deployed 40,000 troops to support the separatists. Three months earlier, NATO had welcomed the “Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia”. Within five days, Tbilisi's troops were crushed. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was recognized by Moscow, which retained control of 20% of Georgian territory.

Vladimir Putin's response to the desire of these former USSR member states to eventually join NATO was not long in coming. However, this war has highlighted the need to modernize the Russian army's equipment. A good argument that Vladimir Putin will use to justify the increase of Russia's military investments during the following years:

3. Ukraine | 2014

While Moscow annexed Crimea by referendum, in March 2014, the separatists of Donbas proclaimed their independence, in April 2014, triggering the war in this region of Eastern Ukraine, with Russian military support.

Vladimir Putin could not bear to see the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych overthrown by a popular pro-European movement: the Maidan revolution. Putin has always considered a direct danger to his power in Russia the installation of Western-style democracy in a brother country like Ukraine.

His response was once again military, but this did not prevent the appointment of Oleksandr Turchynov as interim president of Ukraine until the presidential elections on May 25, 2014. A pro-European government headed first by Oleksandr Turchynov and then by Arseniy Yatsenyuk was also appointed in the wake.

4. Syria | 2015 - ongoing

On September 30, 2015, Vladimir Putin launched a vast military intervention to rescue the Damascus regime, which no longer controlled more than a few portions of territory. The massive aerial bombardments reverse the balance of power. Bashar Al-Assad is kept in power. The Russian army perpetuates strategic military bases in the eastern Mediterranean.

Two years earlier, Vladimir Putin had seen in the non-fulfillment of Barack Obama's commitments on the red line constituted by the use of chemical weapons in Syria by Bashar Al-Assad an American weakness into which he would then fall throughout the following years.

America does not scare Putin anymore, because he considers that it will never dare to resort to force when necessary.

5. Libya | 2016 - ongoing

The fall and death of Gaddafi in 2011, thanks to NATO's support for the Libyan rebellion, was seen as a humiliation by Moscow, which saw its influence diminish in a region that had long gravitated to the Soviet orbit. In 2016, during the second Libyan civil war, Russia sends weapons and mercenaries in support of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, against the government of Tripoli.

From this episode, Putin will retain a truth that will guide all his choices: the word of the West has no value. The West is capable of shamelessly betraying heads of state with whom they had a relationship made of big smiles a few months before.

Putin's greatest fear is now to end up like Gaddafi because of the West's lies. As he showed earlier with Bashar El-Assad in Syria, Vladimir Putin wants to pride himself on never abandoning Russia's friends.

6. Nagorno-Karabakh | 2020 - ongoing

At the end of September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a victorious offensive and retook the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh, supported by Armenia. Moscow, linked to Yerevan by a military alliance, did not intervene in the conflict but imposed itself as a mediator. According to the November 9 peace agreement, Russia is deploying a 2,000-strong peacekeeping force for five years, strengthening its military presence in the South Caucasus.

7. Ukraine | 2022 - ongoing

Under the pretext of protecting ethnic Russians and Russian speakers from a “Nazi State with no legal existence”, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, using his troops based in Belarus and his allies in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.

This “special military operation” should serve to reassert its power in the face of a NATO presence, denounced as aggressive.

A recent statement by a Russian general on April 22, 2022, seems to give more indications of the new objectives pursued by Russia with this war in Ukraine. This general speaks of a total takeover of the Donbas and Mariupol and then moving on to Odesa before reaching Transnistria in Moldavia, a region with pro-Russian separatists. Russia would find there the means to completely close the access to the Black Sea to Ukraine.

Only time will tell how far Vladimir Putin will be prepared to go in his current madness, which now seems limitless.

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