Mark Galeotti, Russia’s Wars in Chechnya 1994-2009 (Osprey, 2024)
Before there was Ukraine, there was Chechnya. Between 1994 and 2009, post-Soviet Russia fought two wars against the small but historically irritating State of Chechnya on its southern border. In many ways, the Russian experience there foreshadowed much of the disaster that has befallen them in Ukraine, though there are also several important differences. Mark Galeotti’s Russia’s Wars in Chechnya explores Boris Yeltsin’s then Vladimir Putin’s efforts to control their southern neighbour.
That Russian interference in Chechnya was never going to easy is obvious from Galeotti’s historical survey that opens his book. Chechnya was a country riven by internal strife, but one that came together when foreign invasion threatened. He compares the armies: one disciplined and organised for conventional warfare, the other a product of a warrior people that knew every nook and cranny of the mountainous country they defended. As the Soviet Union broke apart, after 1991, the new Russian president Boris Yeltsin chose Chechnya as a showcase for demonstrating Russian power. In 1994, he engineered a war, but it was not the walkover the Russians expected. After fierce fighting, a peace deal was agreed in 1996, though, as Galeotti points out, it was a ‘hot’ peace that would not last. Enter Vladimir Putin as Russian president in 1999, determined to enforce Russian power in Chechnya. He launched a second invasion that was more methodical than the first and therefore more successful, but at what was then considered a severe price. The disunited Chechens succumbed, though Galeotti notes they could still hurt the Russians in Chechnya and Russia mainly through small-scale operations and terrorist attacks. Putin managed, however, to take advantage of Chechen divisions to promote a Chechen solution, declaring an end to the war in 2009 while backing the Kadyrov faction that remains in control of the country.
Galeotti narrates the Russian campaigns, exposing shortcomings on both sides, while describing the primarily political changes that the wars engendered. Galeotti does not dig deeply into the fighting itself, though he provides enough detail to illustrate the nature of the war. Neither does Galeotti make overt comparisons to Putin’s war in Ukraine: anyone paying attention to that ongoing conflict will not need a heavy-handed author to point them out. Suffice to say that anyone reading about the military aspects of the Chechnya wars will wonder if the Russian commanders learned anything from their experiences. Galeotti’s explanation of political developments highlights the growing presence of fundamentalist Islam in Chechnya and also the fractious nature of civil politics, which is different from Ukraine. Overall, Galeotti’s concise account of the Russian adventures in Chechnya, ably supported by Osprey’s usual quality maps and photograph selection, makes this an informative and thought-provoking contribution to Osprey’s Essential Histories series.
