UKRAINE CRISISRussia’s Recent Invasions of Ukraine and Georgia Offer Clues to What Putin Might Be Thinking Now

By Liam Collins

Published 28 January 2022

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014. A look at the two invasions against neighboring territories offers insight to what a possible new invasion would entail if diplomacy is unable to ease the growing tensions.

Given that Russia has amassed 100,000 troops along its nearly 1,200-mile border with Ukraine, a look at two recent invasions by Russia against neighboring territories offers insight to what a possible new invasion would entail if diplomacy is unable to ease the growing tensions.

Invasion of Georgia
In 2008, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia, a country in the Caucasus region located on the Black Sea, during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Approximately 40,000 soldiers and 1,200 armored vehicles entered into Georgia’s semi-autonomous region of South Ossetia before stopping about 35 miles short of Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital.

Putin attempted to justify the invasion under the pretense of the international norm of the responsibility to protect. In this case, Russia argued that its use of force was required to protect Osseitians from Georgian “genocide”.

Yet the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a nongovernmental international agency started in 2008 to prevent genocide, found no legal justification for Russia’s use of force. Instead, there is plenty of evidence to indicate the war was “premeditated.”

Invasion of Crimea
In 2014, when Russian invaded Crimea, Putin had a large troop formation along Ukraine’s border. But instead of invading there, Putin used hybrid warfare to seize Crimea, a peninsula that juts into the Black Sea and housed a Russian naval base.

Ukraine failed to provide a military response. But when Russia actively supported separatists in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk – collectively known as the Donbass – Ukraine fought back. Even though Ukraine’s military was in a “decrepit” state, hollowed out by decades of corruption, it was able to push the Russian-backed separatists to the border with the help of volunteers.

In response, Russia increased its support, sending small military formations to assist the separatists.

As a career U.S. special forces officer with combat and operational deployments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Africa and South America, I conducted field research on the 2008 and 2014 wars in Georgia and Ukraine. Based on my military experience, Putin would not want to send large troop formations into Ukraine without some sort of justification, credible or not. As it is now, justification for an invasion would be extremely difficult for Putin. That doesn’t mean he won’t invade anyway.