SUMMARY
Introduction
The Soviet Union was established in 1922 after the 1917 Revolution and following an intrastate conflict. It was governed by an authoritarian regime with the Russian Communist Party (CPSU) as the locus of power. In the 1980's, the general secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, initiated substantial political and economic reforms. The new freedoms arising from Gorbachev’s democratization and decentralization of the political system led to civil unrest and demands for independence in a number of the constituent republics in the periphery. The Soviet Union was finally dissolved in 1991 and left 15 successor states. The Russian Federation was by far the largest and most powerful among them.
Since 1946 the Russian Federation has experienced the interstate, intrastate, non-state and one-sided categories of UCDP organized violence.
The governments of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation have also provided secondary warring support to a number of governments and non-state groups. Such conflicts included: Iran (1946), North Korea (1949–1953), Tajikistan (1993–1996), Afghanistan (1979–1988 and 2001), South Ossetia (2008), Ukraine (2014–2022), Syria (2015–2024), Central African Republic (2024-) and Mali (2024-). Since 2024 Russia has received secondary warring support from North Korea.
2025
Following a period of heighten tension, military build-up, and diplomatic threats, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022. This text focuses on relevant developments within Russia; see Russia – Ukraine conflict for a full account of the war in Ukraine. Throughout 2025, the conflict persisted with unabated intensity. The heaviest fighting took place in and around Pokrovsk city in Donetsk oblast, Ukraine.
On 6 August 2024, the conflict spread back across the internationally recognized border of Russia with unprecedented intensity as Ukraine launched an attack into the Sudzha region in Kursk oblast. In October 2024, North Korea sent upwards of 12,000 soldiers to help Russia recapture the area. By March 2025, this had been largely completed, with fighting in the area moving back across the border into Ukraine. Fatalities in Russia thereafter dropped drastically.
In the context of the interstate conflict against Ukraine, the Russian government also carried out widespread violence against civilians and committed violations of the laws of war. Human rights organizations have accused Russian soldiers of rape, summary executions, torture, and forced deportation, and on 17 March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president Vladimir Putin. During 2025, the Russian government was also involved in one-sided violence in the Central African Republic and Mali, mainly perpetrated by the Africa Corps, formerly Wagner, in the context of Russia’s ongoing secondary warring support for their governments.
Conflicts 1946-1989
In the years after the Second World War ended in 1945, Soviet forces clashed with armed independence movements in the Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and the Ukrainian Soviet republics. The Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956 to secure a pro-Soviet government in the country. In 1969, there were border clashes between Soviet and Chinese forces along the Ussuri River.
After a coup brought communists to power in Afghanistan in 1973, the country entered an unstable period as various factions within the communist party vied for power in a series of coups. Seeking greater control, the Soviet Union directly employed its special forces to participate in one such coup, on 27 December 1979, killing several hundred Afghan security forces in a short Afghanistan - Soviet Union conflict. The newly installed puppet regime under Babrak Karmal immediately called for Soviet aid to suppress opposition in the country. By 1 January 1980, there were at least 50 000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union started fighting alongside the Afghan government against various opposition movements, often collectively referred to as the Mujahideen, and is coded as a secondary warring party in the Afghan intrastate conflict from 1980 to 1989. The Afghan war is often cited as one of the key destabilizing factors leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
On 11 March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected the new General Secretary. Gorbachev intended to revitalize the stagnated economy, and recognized the need to reform the Soviet political system to achieve this. Under the slogans of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness and transparency) he tried to liberalize the moribund Soviet system, unleashing in the process suppressed nationalist sentiment, leading to the rise of separatist movements in all the Soviet republics. From 1987, protests, often expressing nationalist sentiment, began breaking out with increased frequency. As part of his attempts at reforming the Soviet system, Gorbachev replaced several "old guard" heads of republics with more liberal ones. Merely changing leaders failed to stem nationalist sentiment, and the new leaders tended to be more amendable to nationalist demands, such as when the new Latvian leader bowed to pressure to legalize the inter-war flag of the country and make Latvian the official language. The Soviet Union resorted to one-sided violence in several of its constituent republics as nationalist protest movements emerged.
Demonstrations in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian majority enclave located in the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), escalated into inter-ethnic clashes between Armenians and Azeris after the local authority held a vote to secede from Azerbaijan and join the Armenia SSR on 20 February 1988. The Soviet Union supported the Azerbaijan SSR and refused to make any changes to the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, instead imposing direct rule over the territory. Direct rule ended on 28 November 1989, leading the Armenia SSR to declare the enclave to be part of a unified Armenian republic, sparking a territorial conflict between the Soviet Union and the Republic of Armenia (renamed from the Armenian SSR in its “Declaration of State Sovereignty of Armenia” on 23 August 1990). The Republic of Armenia became the government of Armenia upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991.
The formal annexation by Armenia also sparked outrage in Azerbaijan, where mass protests demanded independence from the Soviet Union. A pro-independence party, the APF (Azerbaijani Popular Front), organized a mass protest movement during December 1989 and January 1990 that led several local administrations to surrender to the movement, amid paralysis of the Azerbaijan SSR. APF began organizing national defence committees and mobilizing the local population on 12 January 1990, in anticipation of a Soviet intervention. APF has also been accused of organizing pogroms against Armenians at this time. The Soviet intervention came late at night on 19 January, as 26 000 troops smashed through the hastily erected barricades around Baku city and crushed APF organizing as well as civilian protesters in events known as "Black January", resulting in over a hundred deaths. After having temporarily suppressed Azerbaijani independence organizing, Soviet troops together with forces under the Azerbaijan SSR launched large attacks on the Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and its surrounding. In conjuncture with this offensive, Soviet Union resorted to widespread one-sided violence and forced displacement.
On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first republic to declare independence, followed by Latvia in May. All other republics would subsequently declare independence during 1991, leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in a vote of the upper chamber of the Supreme Soviet on 26 December 1991. This process was sped along following a failed coup attempt in August 1991 by hardline officers opposed to the federalization of the union. Several former Soviet countries was engulfed in conflict with Russia-friendly breakaway regions immediately after independence, such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and Transnistria in Moldova.
1993 October Coup
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly established Russian Federation faced a constitutional crisis as the President of the federation, Boris Yeltsin, unconstitutionally dissolved parliament and called for snap elections on 21 September 1993. This was disputed by parliament, which impeached Yeltsin, appointed an alternative acting president and barricaded themselves in the White House building in Moscow. Clashes erupted between police and forces loyal to parliament, resulting in at least 145 deaths. The White House was stormed on October 4th, resulting in the surrender of the parliamentary forces. Some high-ranking military officers had reportedly initially expressed sympathies with the parliamentary forces, but ultimately backed Yeltsin, thus greatly diminishing the risk of a protracted conflict.
Chechen Wars
The Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was an autonomous republic under Soviet Russia, which in the aftermath of the August 1991 coup attempt, as most Soviet republics declared independence, faced its own coup as militants of the NCChP (All-National Congress of the Chechen People) loyal to Dzhokhar Dudayev took control of the state apparatus. After holding a referendum that confirmed Dudayev as president, Dudayev declared independence on 1 November 1991. After a split between Chechens and Ingush in June 1992, the Ingush parts of the republic joined Russia as the Republic on Ingushetia, whereas the Chechen parts would continue to strive for independence as the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Early attempts by Russia to restore their authority in the area failed as troops sent to Grozny in November 1991 retreated after having failed to leave the airport.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria faced significant internal challenges as the economy collapsed, as it attempted to severe ties to Russia, leading several armed groups, notably the Forces of Rusland Labazanov and the Provisional Council of the Chechen Republic, to attempt to challenge Dudayev’s leadership. These challenges received support from Russia, even though the weren't opposed to independence, leading to increased tensions between Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and Russia. The conflict entered its first armed face, known as the First Chechen War, as Russian forces began an offensive in December 1994. After over two months of heave fighting and brutal shelling, the city of Grozny fell in early March 1995. Fighting continued until April 1996, when Dudayev was killed and replaced by Maskhadov who agreed to a ceasefire with Russia. In August 1996, after a successful Chechen counterattack on Grozny, negotiations resumed and a comprehensive ceasefire (the Khasavyurt Accords) was signed on 31 August 1996. The agreement stipulated that Russian forces would withdraw from the region while there was to be a moratorium on the core issue – the future status of Chechnya – until 31 December 2001.
In September 1999, Russia was rocked by a series of apartment bombings that collectively killed over 300 people. Under the direction of the newly appointed acting prime minister Vladimir Putin, Russian authorities blamed the attacks on Chechen separatist, and launched a new attack on the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, starting what would be known as the Second Chechen War. In a brutal siege lasting between December 1999 to February 2000 Russia recaptured the now largely destroyed city of Grozny, killing thousands of civilians both as collateral in state-based violence, usually in indiscriminate shelling and airstrikes, and as a result of widespread use of one-sided violence by Russian forces. In July 2020, with fighting still ongoing, a new local administration under Akhmad Kadyrov, a Chechen warlord which had switched sides to Russia, was appointed. Akhmad Kadyrov led the Russian Chechen Republic as its President until his assassination by Chechen Islamists in 2004. His son, Ramzan Kadyrov, took over as its president in 2007, and his ruthless local strongman rule became key in suppressing separatist sentiment in the region.
The conflict with the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria would drag on until 2007, when recently appointed leader of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Doku Umarov, renounced Chechen nationalism in favor of Caucasian pan-Islamism and declared the establishment of the Caucasus Emirate. The Forces of the Caucasus Emirate would fight Russia throughout the North Caucasus region for nearly another decade, as well as conducting one-sided attacks on Russian cities outside of the conflict zone. By the end of 2015 the group was largely defunct, with its members either killed or captured by security forces, or having deserted to join the Islamic State (IS) in its conflict to establish an Islamic State in the Caucasus, which continued as a low intensity insurgency. The group had been largely defeated by 2021, though it was active again in 2024. IS was also involved in a major one-sided attack in Krasnogorsk, near Moscow, killing 145 people attending a concert on 22 March 2024, the largest one-sided attack inside of Russia in decades.
Renewed foreign policy aggression
With the defeat of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in 2007, Russia was internally stable enough to increasingly project strength outwards and take an ever more domineering attitude towards its smaller neighbor states, in particular former soviet republics viewed within Russia as its "near abroad". Between 2000 and 2005, protest movements in the former communist countries of Yugoslavia (2000), Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Kyrgyzstan (2005) overthrew Russia-friendly authoritarian governments in favor of governments supporting closer ties to Western democracies. These revolutions are often known as color revolutions, and were increasingly looked upon with hostility by the Kremlin, which has accused the West of orchestrating the revolutions to expand its influence at Russia's expense. The Rose Revolution in Georgia brought Mikheil Saakashvili, who favored Georgia seeking both NATO and EU membership, to power.
In August 2008, after a period of increased tensions and hostility, Georgia started an offensive on the Russian-backed separatist Republic of South Ossetia. Russia intervened as a secondary warring party on behalf of the Republic of South Ossetia in its territorial conflict, defeating the much smaller Georgian army within days. Georgian troops withdrew from the South Ossetian territory, and Russian forces took control of areas far beyond the administrative border of South Ossetia. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in South Ossetia on 7-8 August, Georgia's second break-away republic Abkhazia attempted to re-establish control over the upper Kodori Valley, which was the only area in Abkhazia that remained under Georgian control. Abkhazia was supported by Russian forces that carried out aerial attacks and advanced into undisputed western Georgian territory, establishing control over the upper Kodori Valley. Shortly before the arrival of the Abkhaz forces, the Georgian forces had withdrawn, and the ethnic Georgian population living in the valley had fled.
Russia motivated its intervention on the basis of protecting its citizens in the disputed regions, as most residents in the region had been granted Russian passports prior to the conflict. The conflict received much international attention, and mediation by the French president on behalf of the European Union resulted in a six-point peace plan signed by Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia. The agreement established a ceasefire and called for the withdrawal of all parties to the positions held before August. It did, however, not address the political status of South Ossetia or Abkhazia.
A few days after the end of the fighting, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Claiming that the statelets were independent, Russia signed bilateral agreements on military support with the regions that allowed Russian troops to control their borders. The permanent deployment of Russian troops inside South Ossetia and Abkhazia clearly violated the ceasefire provisions calling for a withdrawal of the troops to pre-war locations and strengths. Russia only withdrew from undisputed Georgian territory in the buffer zone adjacent to South Ossetia. Both regions are heavily dependent on Russian financial assistance.
On 27 February 2014, Russia conducted a limited and nearly bloodless invasion of Ukraine, employing soldiers without any insignia to occupy, and later unilaterally annex, the Crimean peninsula. This followed on a protest movement in Ukraine known as the Maidan, which overthrew the pro-Russian president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, on the 22 February. Yanukovich had mainly had his support base in Ukraine's largely Russia-speaking south and east, and his ouster sparked counter-protests in these regions. Russia had become increasingly hostile towards anti-government protests in the post-Soviet space after the ‘color revolutions’ brought to power governments that often prioritized closer ties to the West over ties to Russia, as exemplified by Georgia’s former president Mikheil Saakashvili. The emergence of a hostile Ukraine was seen as a critical national security threat by the Putin regime; in 2021 Putin wrote that “the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.”
Having faced remarkably little resistance in Crimea, and a muted international response, a similar strategy was employed to help foment the ongoing anti-Maidan protests in Ukraine's east into separatist movements. Small armed groups, often including people with a background in Russia’s armed forces and intelligence services, began occupying key infrastructure in many cities in eastern Ukraine, having particular success in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. That was a beginning of an intrastate conflict between the government of Ukraine and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), with the latter two continuing to be heavily supported by Russia acting covertly as a secondary warring party. Even though violence dropped after a series of treaties in 2015, known as the Minsk Agreements, the conflict in the east continued with about a third of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, collectively known as the Donbass, under occupation by unrecognized, Russian-supported statelets.
Reverbations from the invasion of Ukraine
In 2021, Russia began a massive military build-up near its border with Ukraine. An estimated 100 000-190 000 troops were stationed along the border by early 2022, amid denials from Russia that it had any plans to invade Ukraine. Troops were also deployed to Belarus, Crimea (which had been occupied by Russia since 2014), and the Russian-backed separatist region of Transdniestria in Moldova. Diplomatic tension heightened as Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on the non-expansion of NATO, and non-deployment of missile strike systems near the Russian borders. On 21 February 2022, Putin recognized the independence of the separatist areas Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, and the next day Russian tanks entered eastern Ukraine as part of this "peacekeeping" mission. The militias of both groups had largely been under Russian control since the September 2015 reorganization of the LPR and DPR leadership, and with Russia entering the conflict directly the groups are considered to have been submerged under Russia.
On the morning of 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine, announcing a "special military operation" with the aim to "demilitarize and denazify Ukraine" in order to stop the Ukrainian nationalists from trying to "bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass". Putin further declared that Russia would support the "right to self-determination" of "all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine[...] to make a free choice[...] in favor of being with their historical homeland, Russia". Russia attacked through a multi-pronged ground assault from Belarus in the north, Crimea in the south, from Donbass in the east, and from Russia towards Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast. Russia announced its annexation of the four Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022, adding to the two (Crimea and Sevastopol) that had been annexed in 2014, none of which have broad internationally recognition. Russia has been under international sanctions, primarily from the United States, European Union and their allies since 2014, but these sanctions grew massively in scale after the 2022 invasion. Below follows a shorter account of conflict developments relevant to the internationally recognized territory of Russia, whereas a more detailed account of the full conflict can be found at Russia – Ukraine.
The attack on Ukraine has had growing reverberation onto Russia. The first death inside of Russia from the conflict was in March 2022, and during the year 65 people are estimated to have been killed. During 2023, three groups were active in the conflict over government in Russia, all of which had been fighting in the Russia - Ukraine conflict. The conflict over government had not previously been active since the 1993 October Coup. LSR (Legion Svoboda Rossii; Freedom of Russia Legion) and RDK (Russkiy dobrovolcheskiy korpus; Russian Volunteer Corps) were two Russian opposition outfits that were militarized and armed by Ukraine, and had both fought alongside Ukrainian forces inside of Ukraine prior launching several raids into Russian territory. After smaller skirmishes in Belgorod and Bryansk during March and April 2023, they launched a coordinated attack in May 2023 and briefly controlled some villages in Belgorod oblast close to the Ukrainian border. Renewed raids were conducted in Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk in September 2023. The attacks were supported by Ukraine, but allowed Ukraine to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability, given the opposition to conducting attacks on Russian soil expressed by Ukraine's Western supporters. At least 70 people were killed in clashes between the Government of Russia on the one side and LSR and RDK on the other during 2023, in addition to just over a hundred people killed in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine inside of Russia. LSR continued to be active in 2024, after having launched an incursion in Belgorod in March, albeit with decreased intensity.
The private military company Wagner was involved in a short uprising against the Russian government in 2023. Prior to the mutiny, the Wagner group acted on behalf of the Russian government in the war in Ukraine. During the battle of Bakhmut, its leader, Prigozhin, frequently criticized the Russian Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov, for failing to supply his forces with enough supplies and ammunition, causing substantial losses. These tensions escalated and on 24 June 2023, Wagner declared war on the Russian Defense Ministry and started marching on Moscow. Following a deal brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Wagner halted its rebellion and relocated to Belarus. Prigozhin kept a low profile the following months but appeared on a recruitment video from an African country, most likely Mali, in August. On 23 August 2023, a plane that was carrying the Wagner leadership, including Prigozhin, crashed north of Moscow, killing all ten passengers and crew. Although officially denying involvement, Russia was blamed for the crash, which was reportedly caused either by a bomb placed aboard or a missile hitting the plane. After the death of the Wagner leadership, Wagner was gradually integrated under the Russian Ministry of Defence as the Africa Corps from November 2023. Wagner's continued operations in Africa was thus conducted as part of the Government of Russia, making Russia a secondary warring party to the Government of Mali and Government of Central African Republic, among others.
On 6 August 2024, the Russia - Ukraine conflict spread back across the internationally recognized border of Russia with unprecedented intensity as Ukraine launched an attack into the Sudzha region in Kursk oblast. This was the first large-scale incursion into the internationally recognized territory of Russia by Ukraine, which had long been considered off-limits for Ukraine by its Western donor countries. The early offensive saw significant territorial gains, as the border had been only lightly defended by Russia, with Ukraine capturing over 1000 square km in the first month, before facing increasingly stiff resistance. The offensive forced Russia to divert significantly more resources to protect its long and otherwise relatively calm frontier with Ukraine in the provinces of Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk, but also tied up significant Ukrainian forces and reportedly caused a higher proportion of Ukrainian losses than on most other fronts. Russian counteroffensive efforts in the region began in September 2024, and picked up pace as some 11-12 000 North Korean soldiers arrived to support them in October. A renewed counteroffensive in early 2025 saw Ukraine loose most of its holdings in the region by mid-March. Fighting thereafter moved across the border into Ukraine’s Sumy region.
Russia has during the war experienced escalating drone and missile attacks on its own territory. These attacks have mainly targeted fuel depots and refineries, ammunition depots, airbases and occasional factories with relevance for the war. Russian warships in its Black Sea harbors have also been repeatedly targeted, often by maritime drones. During 2025, Ukrainian attacks reached as far as the Vladivostok area in Russia’s far east, having been launched by saboteurs and Ukrainian agents from within Russian territory.
The Russian government was involved in widespread one-sided violence during the invasion of Ukraine, often uncovered after Russia had retreated from an occupied area, notably in places such as Bucha, Izium and Kherson. During 2024 and 2025, Russia also employed one-sided violence in the Central African Republic and Mali. This violence was mainly perpetrated by the Africa Corps, formerly Wagner, in the context of Russia’s ongoing secondary warring support for their governments (following the absorption of Wagner into the Ministry of Defence after their failed coup in 2023).
