To understand Vladimir Putin's mission in Syria, look at Chechnya and Ukraine

By Paul McGeough
Updated February 18 2016 - 5:08pm, first published 4:22pm
Children peer out from their destroyed home in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. Photo: Komsomolskaya Pravda via AP
Children peer out from their destroyed home in Aleppo, Syria's largest city. Photo: Komsomolskaya Pravda via AP
Russian air force general Alexander Kharchevsky adjusts a helmet on Vladimir Putin, then Russia's acting president, before he flew into Chechnya in a fighter jet on March 20, 2000.  Photo: ITAR-TASS via AP
Russian air force general Alexander Kharchevsky adjusts a helmet on Vladimir Putin, then Russia's acting president, before he flew into Chechnya in a fighter jet on March 20, 2000. Photo: ITAR-TASS via AP
August 2014: Australian Federal Police officers and their Dutch counterparts collect human remains from the MH17 crash site in the fields outside the village of Grabovka in rebel-held eastern Ukraine.  Photo: Kate Geraghty
August 2014: Australian Federal Police officers and their Dutch counterparts collect human remains from the MH17 crash site in the fields outside the village of Grabovka in rebel-held eastern Ukraine. Photo: Kate Geraghty
A pro-Russian rebel sniper on the outskirts of Shakhtersk in eastern Ukraine, July 2014. Photo: Kate Geraghty
A pro-Russian rebel sniper on the outskirts of Shakhtersk in eastern Ukraine, July 2014. Photo: Kate Geraghty

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