So many parallels stand between Syria’s Aleppo in 2016 and Chechnya’s Grozny in 2000.
A city ruled by destruction, hundreds of thousands of people between dead, injured and homeless. Continuous raids shake the cities and level the buildings with the ground, without excluding any facility or hospital.
In both cities, Russia is the hero of the war, and Putin is the maestro.
When the Second Chechen War erupted in 1999 to call for absolute independence from Russia, in which Grozny paid the heavy price, Putin described the Chechens as terrorists. He served then as the prime minister and de facto ruler of Russia due to Boris Yeltsin's illness.
Putin triumphed and ended the rebellion of the separatists and managed in 2007 to impose Ramzan Kadyrov as Head of the Chechen Republic. He was described by the rebels as Putin’s puppet. Kadyrov remains to this day president of Chechnya with 98 percent of the vote.
Between Grozny and Aleppo, Russia has been imposing itself as a major player on the international scene. Will it triumph again? Everything depends on the US position.
But one truth remains when the United Nations described Grozny in 2000 as the most ruined city on the planet. But will Aleppo steal the title?
In its article comparing Grozny to Aleppo, Foreign Policy said that “it is that a brutal war is best won by brutal means.”
For more details, watch the full report in the video above