In April 2015, the commander of Russia's military base in Tajikistan said its size would swell to 9,000 troops by 2020. But Russia reversed course last week, saying it will opt for fewer boots on the ground in a country the Kremlin sees as its bulwark against Islamic militants across Tajikistan's long and vulnerable border with Afghanistan.
By Farangis Najibullah
In April 2015, the commander of Russia's military
base in Tajikistan said its size would swell to 9,000 troops by 2020. But Russia reversed course last week, saying it will
opt for fewer boots on the ground in a country the Kremlin sees as its bulwark
against Islamic militants across Tajikistan's long and vulnerable border with
Afghanistan.
The troop presence at the 201st Military Base,
Russia's biggest non-naval military facility beyond its borders, will be downsized from a
division to a brigade, a senior Russian general said on January
30.
The about-face may seem counterintuitive, coming
against the backdrop of repeated Russian warnings that the threat from
Afghanistan has grown since the rise of the Islamic State militant group and the
pullout of most U.S. and NATO troops.
But analysts say it reflects a struggle by the
Russian military to build or maintain strength on several fronts while
contending with the need to keep costs under control at a time when the
collapse in world prices for oil, the country's key export, has hit the economy
hard.
The effects of Western sanctions imposed to punish
Russia for its interference in Ukraine -- including the military occupation and
subsequent seizure of Crimea and what Kyiv and NATO say has been ample military
support for separatists in eastern Ukraine -- have added to the economic woes.
"Running an entire division is too excessive as
Russia is facing an economic crisis," Russian military analyst Vladimir
Mukhin tells RFE/RL.
The military has revealed no numbers and said last
week it had not yet decided how many troops would remain in Tajikistan. But
Aleksandr Golts and other Russian military analysts say a brigade normally
consists of 3,000 to 5,000 military personnel.
Not Enough To Go Around
It's not just a matter of money, according to Golts.
Russia's military is overstretched with its involvement in conflicts in Syria
and Ukraine, he says.
After supporting the Syrian government with weapons
and advisers throughout its war against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad,
Russia stepped up its military presence in the Middle East state last year and
began a bombing campaign on September 30. President Vladimir Putin has put no
time limit on Russia's biggest operation outside the former Soviet Union in
decades.
Kyiv and NATO say that Russia has sent heavy weapons
and thousands of troops to eastern Ukraine to support separatists in a war that
has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014. Russia denies it despite a
growing body of evidence.
The seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine
have sent tension between Russia and the West skyrocketing. The atmosphere of
confrontation is stoked by Kremlin assertions that the United States and NATO
are out to weaken Russia or even oust Putin from power.
Golts says Russia is focusing more military power in
its western borderlands. In January, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia
would create three new military divisions on its western flank, calling it one
of the most important tasks for his ministry in 2016.
Keeping Boots On The Ground
The new array of imperatives does not mean Russia
will forget about Tajikistan, where a contract signed in 2012 allows it to keep
the base through 2042, or the surrounding region.
Golts says that Central Asia will remain a priority
for the Russian military -- a point that the Russian authorities have been at
pains to make.
The officer who announced the plans to reduce the
201st base to brigade size, General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, was quick to add that
"its role as Russia's outpost and as guarantor of peace and stability in
the region will remain unchanged."
He also announced organizational
changes in Russia's smaller military presence in neighboring
Kyrgyzstan, where it has an air base, but announced no reductions there.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are members of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a security alliance that is one
of several groupings Moscow uses to maintain influence in the former Soviet
Union and a buffer zone in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe.
Zarudnitsky said the changes in the two countries
were part of broader measures "to optimize the organizational
structure" of the military, including its bases abroad.
Russia has already pulled its 149th Motorized Rifle
Regiment back from the Tajik town of Kulob, just over 40 kilometers from the
Afghan border, to the capital, Dushanbe.
Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University
and expert on Russian security issues, says the reorganization does not mean
Russia has stopped worrying about Afghanistan. "Here in Moscow security
circles seem very aware of the potential and growing risks from
Afghanistan," Galeotti says by e-mail from the Russian capital.
"I suspect it is a combination of a rationalization
of assets and also a sense that -- not that they would admit it openly -- maybe
Tajikistan is hard to defend and that they also need to be thinking more
seriously about a second line of defense along Russia's southern border,"
he adds.
That would fit in with statements made by
Zarudnitsky when he announced the shift. He said that in 2015, Russia formed a
motorized mountain brigade in the Tuva Republic, an antiaircraft regiment in
Krasnodar Krai, and a tank division in Chelyabinsk Oblast. All three regions
are on Russia's southern border.
Close Ties
A smaller, more consolidated Russian military
presence in Tajikistan could also reduce the risk of violent incidents -- such
as attacks on Tajik civilians by Russian soldiers -- that have added to
tensions between the two countries, whose interdependence is sometimes a source
of friction.
Russia relies on Tajikistan as a buffer, while
remittances from Tajik migrants working in Russia have been a key source of
money in the much poorer Central Asian country -- though that cash flow has
dwindled during the Russian economic downturn.
Galeotti says how many troops Russia will maintain
in Tajikistan remains to be seen. "I suspect that this plan to shift to
brigade strength means [the Russian authorities] may simply say they will not
be adding the extra 2,000 troops, claiming they need fewer administrative and
command staff, especially with the shutting of Kulob base," he says.
Galeotti says that "the deployment to
Tajikistan of extra Mi-24P attack and Mi-8MTV assault helicopters last year,
and the plans to reequip this brigade, not least with BTR-82A personnel
carriers" mean that "even with cuts the Russian force will be more
effective."
Russia will also help equip and train Tajik troops,
part of what Russian media have reported are plans to grant Tajikistan $1.2 billion
in military aid in the next few years.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, who
has called Tajikistan "an outpost of the CSTO" and said Moscow was
"greatly troubled by the situation on the southern frontiers" of the
alliance, visited Tajikistan this month and reaffirmed Russia's interest in the
country.
Tajik Defense Ministry spokesman Faridun Mahmadaliev
told reporters that Russian military assistance to Tajikistan and the situation
in the Tajik-Afghan border dominated the agenda of February 3 meetings with
Antonov.
Russia has long voiced alarm about the potential for
violence in Afghanistan -- where the Soviet Union fought a disastrous war of
occupation for nearly a decade before withdrawing in 1988 -- to spill over into
the mostly Muslim countries of former Soviet Central Asia.
Inroads by Islamic State militants in Afghanistan
and a militant offensive in the country's north last year have added to the
concerns.
In October, when Taliban militants briefly took over
the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, whose province borders Tajikistan, Russian
Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said he would not rule out reestablishing Russian control over the
Tajik-Afghan border.
Russian border guards patrolled the mountainous,
1,300-kilometer frontier until 2005.
Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the
permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste
400, Washington DC 20036.
