Russia’s Military Return to Central Asia
While Moscow never really left the region, its presence is noticeably on the rise.
If nothing else, the past two years have shown the broader geopolitical world that Russia no longer shies from military intervention abroad. Between Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and now Syria, Russia’s current crop of external military operations exceed any other point in Moscow’s post-Soviet period. And these excursions show no signs of slowing – no major debacles have yet rocked Russian troops in Syria, and the Donbas remains firmly in Russian-backed separatist control. Russia’s economic myopia may only push the country deeper into recession, but Moscow’s shown little interest in pulling back from its presence abroad.
As such, it should come as little surprise that Russian President Vladimir Putin has suddenly seemed to take a keen interest in expanding Russia’s military reach across former Soviet territory in Central Asia. Specifically, over the past few weeks Russia has issued striking rhetoric on increasing its armed reach within Tajikistan.
Moscow already maintains a substantial military presence in Tajikistan, and has ever since the country gained independence following the fall of the Soviet Union. Within the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, spread between an airbase near Dushanbe and a pair of other facilities in Tajikistan’s south, Russia maintains a total of 7,000 troops on Tajikistani territory. Further, not only does a Russian-Tajikistani agreement allow Moscow’s troops to remain in the country through 2042, but the number of Russian troops stationed will jump nearly 30 percent through 2020, to 9,000 soldiers total. Moscow’s also pledged $1.2 billion in military aid to Tajikistan, should Dushanbe need it.
Tajikistan – like Armenia and Kyrgyzstan – is one of the post-Soviet nations with the heaviest sustained Russian military boot-print, and has been over the past 25 years. But if recent reports prove correct, Russia will increase its presence even further. According to Russian media in October, Moscow will be deploying an unspecified number of attack and military-transport helicopters to Tajikistan in the near future, set to be stationed at the 201st Division’s base. A few days after the reports first surfaced, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov went one step further. Asked whether or not Russia would return troops to the Tajik-Afghan border, where they’d remained until 2005, Borisov was cagey: “I don’t rule it out. … We have a base there as you know. Our political leaders will discuss and decide. Everything is possible.”
Russia’s military moves come at the behest of Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmon, the autocratic leader who recently decimated Central Asia’s lone mainstream Islamic political party. According to Rahmon – and he’s backed up by Moscow – the Russian presence and expansion remains necessary in the face of a swelling Islamist threat from Afghanistan.
“Fighting is going on along more than 60 percent of the Tajik border with Afghanistan,” Rahmon recently claimed. As such, at a recent tête-à-tête with Putin, the two leaders discussed “steps to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border,” which runs more than 1,400 km. Rahmon tied the plea for increased security to membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): “The Tajik border with Afghanistan is in fact the Commonwealth of Independent States’ southern border, and any threat to the Tajik border is a threat to the CIS, too.”
The recent Taliban takeover of Kunduz, only 70 miles from the border with Tajikistan, undoubtedly spiked nerves in Dushanbe – and provided additional impetus for Russia to ramp its military position throughout the region. But it’s not just Tajikistan for whom Russia is shoring defenses. Recent reports indicate that Afghanistan may purchase an unknown number of combat helicopters. According to Russia’s presidential envoy to Afghanistan and head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov, the planned deal – which will also see Russia provide military training in Afghanistan – came at the behest Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum. As Eurasianet wrote, Russian officials have also been in discussion with Uzbekistani officials about the potential creation of “buffer states” in northern Afghanistan to slow the potential Islamist spillover. What form these “buffer states” would take remains unclear.
What is clear, however, is that Moscow has proven eager to see its troops and materiel return to the southern stretches of the former Soviet Union – and has been willing to couch its rhetoric within the broader zero-sum competition it sees itself playing with Washington, and which it parlays to a domestic audience back home. Kabulov, in fact, has helped lead the rhetorical charge. While Putin has lent his voice to the notion that northern Afghanistan presents potential threats to both Russia and Central Asia, Kabulov has outright claimed that American (and British) nationals have begun training Central Asians to lead the Islamic State’s expansion in the region. Kabulov further implied that Western or American forces have been directing Islamic State’s actions in Afghanistan: “It seems like someone’s hand is pushing freshly trained [Islamic State] fighters to mass along Afghanistan’s northern border. They don’t fight foreign or Afghan government troops.” The Russian official also intoned that American pilots may have been purposefully targeting Taliban groups who have failed to join the Islamic State, observing ominously, “These details bring some very bad thoughts and concerns. We have to take them into account and draw conclusions accordingly.”
Kabulov’s conspiratorial rhetoric isn’t new; a few months ago, he claimed that thousands of ISIS-related fighters were forming a “beachhead” for imminent invasion of both Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. The beachhead failed to materialize, but the conspiracy has only accelerated since – and fits within a larger pattern of confusion and obfuscation about Moscow’s broader beliefs, intentions, and realities. As Russia enters the fray in Syria, beginning with airstrikes last month, its increasing military involvement in Central Asia and Afghanistan is a clear demonstration of Moscow’s ambitions.