Russian Aggression in Georgia and Ukraine as an Example of State Terrorism

Abstract

The chapter overviews Russian aggression in Georgia and Ukraine and provides comparative analyses – demonstrating the differences and similarities between Russia's tactics and policies during Russo-Georgian war (2008), the conflict in Eastern Ukraine (2014), and later during the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022). It also analyzes Russian war crimes and atrocities committed during those conflicts. The first part was written in Spring 2021 before the war in Ukraine (2022), so initially the comparative analysis was made based on two cases – Russo-Georgian War 2008 and Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine 2014. The second part of the chapter was written in Spring 2022 after Russia launched a full-scale invasion against Ukraine. The chapter was written based on the qualitative analyses of the existing literature – comparative analyses, researches about Russian hybrid war, independent case studies based on the information from archives of articles from the media outlets from 2008, 2014, and 2022 analyzing different documents, such as NATO summit declarations, Constitution of Russia, etc.