War and bloodshed doesn’t have the power to shock you when it’s been seen thousands of times before, on television, in films, in newspapers.

That’s why the Russian reaction to the violent bombing campaign in the Syrian city of Aleppo has been so muted. There has been no public outcry over news footage of women, children and the elderly living in ruins, and images of the dead and the maimed have largely gone unnoticed.

It’s because we’ve seen it all before, a lot closer to home. Grozny was its name. Twenty-two years ago, thousands were dying in a brutal conflict between Chechen separatist fighters and Russian government forces which had started in 1994 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Lasting nearly two years, the war did not distinguish between armed separatists, children or young army conscripts. The number of deaths is unknown, estimations vary from 30,000 to 100,0000, with nearly half a million displaced and much of the republic left in ruins.

Russia's foreign policy is more than 20 years old, and emerged from the dust and devastation in Grozny

But despite the brutality, the conflict’s proximity to the rest of Europe and the clear shock among the Russian population, there was no international outrage.

Back then, the French president did not suggest Russia should face war crimes charges over its bombardment, as François Hollande did over the Russian bombing of Aleppo earlier in October. Back then, the US secretary of state did not threaten an international investigation, as John Kerry has done, and Britain’s foreign minister was not saying that shame should become the weapon of peace against Russia. Nothing of the kind.

Instead, President Boris Yeltsin was considered a friend of the west and praised for leading post-Soviet Russia towards democracy. Nobody cared that a year before the first Chechen war, he had essentially staged a coup and practically established one-man rule.

The impunity with which Russia was allowed to behave meant that by the time the second Chechen war erupted in 1999, with Grozny once again flooded with artillery, fire and blood, nobody in the international community put up much of a protest.

Chechen separatist fighters brandish weapons in Grozny in 1996. Photograph: Mindaugas Kulbis/AP

In the meantime, Yeltsin had decided to give his presidential chair to a young special forces veteran called Vladimir Putin.

Back then, Russia was still a friend of the west. It was a G8 member, and not a single world leader who sat with Putin at the 2000 summit in Nago, Japan, mentioned anything about the means by which he came to power being unacceptable for the democratic world.

For many years, Putin was just as an acceptable partner to the west as Yeltsin had been. But the war in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea changed that. Aleppo has truly transformed popular opinion: now, even the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, is comparing Russia’s actions in Syria to a “slaughterhouse”.

But what the international community has missed is that this aggressive foreign policy approach did not start in Syria, or even Ukraine. This policy is more than 20 years old, and emerged from the dust and devastation in Grozny. At least in the first years of its existence, a “no” from the west could have stopped it.

But for some reason nobody said no at the time. For some reason, it was convenient for everyone to think of Russia as a democracy. Western leaders called Putin their partner and even friend. Now they prefer to not remember it.