One of Putin’s life goals is the reestablishment of the Soviet Union. He calls the breakup of the Communist Regime the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Since taking power in 2000, he’s worked hard to make this dream a reality. Even before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin made himself busy getting involved in conflicts across Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. With the war going so badly in Ukraine, it’s likely Putin will have to seek an “easy victory” somewhere else to restore the image of the Russian military after the war concludes. But where might the next invasions take place?

Understanding the Shift to Attritional Warfare

The first one on this list is Georgia. It’s the most likely candidate for a Russian invasion since it already happened once before, back in August 2008. The Russian army invaded the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both of those regions are comprised of ethnic minorities within Georgia who have possessed a strong desire to become independent. But why was Russia involved in the conflict? To understand why, we have to delve into the history of those two breakaway republics.When the Kingdom of Georgia began conquering lands hundreds of years ago, it brought numerous ethnic minorities into the fold, including the Abkhazian and South Ossetian peoples. After being absorbed into the Russian Empire, the Communist Red Army conquered the area during the Russian Civil War. Now officially part of the USSR, these two areas became their own independent republics that merged with Georgia once more after being declared autonomous Soviet republics within Georgia. This became the status quo until the dissolution of the USSR. When the USSR broke up, the two republics had a strong minority within them that wanted independence from Georgia. However, because they had been a part of Georgia for centuries, the international community recognized these areas as part of Georgia.This resulted in the governments of the two breakaway states declaring independence, kicking off a bloody civil war. During the war, the separatist forces received a ton of military assistance from Russia to carry out their wars of independence against Georgian forces. With no international help, Georgia lost both conflicts, and the two republics now had their own quasi-independent status. Over the next 16 years, the two republics had an uneasy truce with Georgia. Throughout this time, numerous clashes broke out between the two breakaway republics and the Georgian forces. Despite the fighting, no major flare-ups occurred until August 2008.During this time, the South Ossetian forces began heavily shelling Georgian positions in violation of the 1992 ceasefire agreement. Georgian forces responded in kind, and when the South Ossetians kept on firing, Georgia troops launched a limited incursion into South Ossetia to silence the artillery fire. Within a matter of hours, the Georgian forces controlled the main separatist stronghold in the region, but it was too late. Unknown to Georgia, Russia had already been secretly funneling troops into South Ossetia in the previous several days. These troops had been waiting on the border since at least May of 2008 when Russian troops began mysteriously building up on the border for no apparent reason. After Georgia took the bait, it was all the excuse Russia needed to launch a full-scale invasion of the country. Within days, nearly 100,000 Russian troops, alongside tens of thousands of Russian armed separatists, quickly overwhelmed Georgian forces. In less than a week, the Russian military not only retook control of all separatist lands but advanced further into territory not claimed by either separatist group to create a so-called buffer zone for the two regions. Fearing further land grabs against their country, Georgia sued for peace to limit the amount of territory Russia could seize. Russia took over approximately 20% of Georgia’s territory during the 5-day campaign. To this day, Russia maintains a 10,000 strong occupying force within the region, with about 5,000 troops split between either breakaway republic.On top of this, Russia continues to violate the peace agreement signed at the end of the war that allows third-party monitoring of the conflict zones. Because of this, Russia could likely move more troops and equipment into those regions with no oversight to finish what they started in 2008. For the Georgian people, this possibility is a real threat to their existence. Ever since the full-scale invasion, fear has been widespread of Russia continuing the 2008 war. Depending on how the war goes in Ukraine, Putin might decide to invade Georgia once more for the “easy victory” that he promised to people and to restore some prestige to the Russian military that’s been so far humiliated on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Implications for the Future

The next country Russia is likely to invade on this list is similarly partially occupied by Russia, but it’s one you probably never heard of. Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine’s southwestern border is the small Eastern European country of Moldova. But while it is its own independent country today, most of its existence, it was not. What is Moldova today used to be part of Romania. However, a year before the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the USSR was busy occupying territories in Eastern Europe. After the Russian invasion of Poland in 1939 and the occupation of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in 1940, Stalin set his sights on another country: Romania. Without getting too much into the weeds, there used to be part of Romania known as Bessarabia and Bukovina. These two regions in the country’s far northeast were home to primarily ethnic Moldovans who share many ties with the Romanian people. Stalin wanted this territory and invaded Romania in June 1940 to claim it for the USSR. Within the first year of the Russian occupation, 12% of the population was either deported or murdered. While temporarily reoccupied by Romania during the war, the Soviet Union reclaimed the area in 1944 and remained part of the USSR until 1991. During this time, numerous Soviet republics, including Moldova, had their own independence movements. Moldova didn’t recognize the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty that supposedly gave Stalin the legal go-ahead to invade Romania. They declared independence in 1991 and soon made several highly contentious changes, including changing the official language to Moldovan and strengthening ties with Romania. During the transition to independence, problems started to arise within Transnistria, a region of the country bordering Ukraine, due to Stalin’s murder and deportation campaigns in the region, as well as ethnic Russians and Ukrainians moving in after being incentivized by the USSR during the Russification effort. Transnistria was and remains predominantly made up of Russian-speaking immigrants. But with Moldova now free of the Soviet yoke, these ethnic minorities in the region became afraid that their political voice would soon get washed away in the pro-Moldovan fervor sweeping the nation. Their worst fear was that Moldova would rejoin Romania, and this was something that they wanted to avoid at all costs. Thankfully, Russia felt the same way. Inside this part of Moldova was a large concentration of Soviet troops under the 14th Army. These troops were still loyal to the USSR, and when Transnistrian militia units asked for weapons and ammunition, the Soviet forces readily opened up their armories to them. In addition, large numbers of 14th Army troops numbering around 14,000 joined the rebels, and thousands of volunteers from Russia joined during the breakaway region’s