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Further Reading

Operational Group of Russian Forces in Tajikistan

When the Soviet Union dissolved at the end of 1991, the main military force in Tajikistan was the 201st Motorized Rifle Division, whose position and resources the Russian Federation inherited. The Russian military is present in Tajikistan at the request of the Tajikistani Government to support the current regime. Russia's 201st Motorized Rifle Division is part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Collective Peacekeeping Force established in 1993. Russian border forces also dominate the multi-national CIS forces guarding the Tajikistani-Afghan border.

The Russian military presence in Tajikistan predated the civil war, and the 201st Motorized Rifle Division had been deployed in Tajikistan since the Soviet period. The Russian Army's 201st Division, fresh out of Afghanistan, helped ex-communists return to power in May 1992. Although nominally neutral in the civil war that broke out in Tajikistan in the fall of 1992, the 201st Division, together with substantial forces from neighboring Uzbekistan, played a significant role in the recapture of the capital city, Dushanbe, by former communist forces. The resulting civil war claimed between 20-50,000 lives.

As the civil war continued in more remote regions of Tajikistan during the next three years, the 201st Division remained the dominant military force, joining with Russian border troops and a multinational group of "peace-keeping" troops (dominated by Russian and Uzbekistani forces and including troops from Kazakstan and Kyrgyzstan) to patrol the porous border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

In the absence of a strong policy guidance from Moscow, the 201st Division turned into an independent political force. Although the local Russian military in Tajikistan was ordered to stay neutral in the evolving conflict; informally it took side and transferred weapons to the Popular Front. The pro-Communist Popular Front was struggling against the Coalition government formed in May 1992, which included representatives from the Democratic and Muslim Opposition. Without the help of the 201st Division, Emomali Rakhmonov would never have come to power. Russia reinforced the 201st Motorized Rifle Division as fighting in the Tajik conflict worsened and the division became more involved.

The openly avowed purpose of the continued occupation was to protect Russia's strategic interests. Those interests were defined as preventing radical Islamic politicization and the shipment of narcotics, both designated as serious menaces to Russia itself. Meanwhile, Tajikistan formed a small army of its own, of which about three-quarters of the officer corps were Russians in mid-1996. Tajikistan, having no air force, relied exclusively on Russian air power. In mid-1996 the preponderance of the estimated 16,500 troops guarding Tajikistan's borders belonged to Russia's Federal Border Service. Border troops received artillery and armor support from the 201st Division, whose strength was estimated in 1996 as at least 12,000 troops.

Gradually the Russian military presence increased, and the Russian leadership made a series of commitments to defend Tajikistan's borders. In addition to border guards, some 6,000 troops in Russia's 201st Motorized Rifle Division, together with a small number of Uzbek troops, made up the majority of a CIS peacekeeping force in Tajikistan in 1997.

Russia, which already had 25,000 armed troops in Tajikistan, tentatively agreed in April 1999 to the establishment of a military base which would help increase the stability in Tajikistan. The Russian and Tajik defense ministers signed a treaty on 16 April 1999 which granted Russia's military the right to establish a base on Tajik territory and to quarter troops from the 201st Motorized Rifle Division at that base for the next 10 years. The provided for the construction of more permanent headquarters for the 6,000-7,000 troops of the from the 201st Motorized Rifle Division already deployed there. The bulk of Russia's troops in Tajikistan are stationed near Dushanbe, Qurghanteppa (close to the Uzbek border), and Kulob (near the Afghan border). The new base will most likely be built somewhere between these three cities.

The April 1999 agreement did not provide for the quartering of additional troops in Tajikistan, But in early 2000 Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov requested that Russia reinforce the Russian-led 201st Motorized Rifle Division in Tajikistan's south.

According to various sources it appears that as of 2004 Russian troops in Tajikistan numbered 22,000 to 25,000, including those serving in the 201-st Motorized Infantry Division with garrisons in Dushanbe, Kulyab and Kurgan-Tyube, in a group of the Russian Federal Border Troops and in an anti-aircraft unit. In line with the Military Agreement dozens of military advisors work at the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan.