DUSHANBE, October 29, 2014, Asia-Plus – Russia will continue actively developing its military bases abroad, Russia Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Tuesday (October 28).
According to Russian media sources, Shoigu said that at a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense of Russia.
“We keep developing our bases abroad: in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia. We are developing them rather actively,” Shoigu was quoted as saying.
He recalled that recently a Russian squadron went on combat duty in Belarus. “We settled there and started combat duty and everything connected with training,” Shoigu said.
The Russian military based deployed in Tajikistan is Russia”s largest non-naval military facility outside the country. It was officially opened in Tajikistan in 2004 under a previous agreement, which was signed in 1993, and hosts Russia’s largest military contingent deployed abroad.
A total of some 6,000 Russian troops are stationed at three military facilities collectively known as the 201st military base – in Dushanbe, Qurghon Teppa, some 100 kilometers from Dushanbe, and Kulob, about 200 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe.
We will recall that Sergey Shoigu said last November that Russia will fully upgrade the equipment at its military base in Tajikistan ahead of the U.S.”s withdrawal from Afghanistan. That will also entail making the unit based there into a division again, after it was downgraded to a brigade in 2009, the Russian defense minister noted. Shoigu didn”t give any information about whether or not the base would receive any new soldiers.
Yaroslav Roshchupkin, a spokesman for Russia”s Central Military District, said in early October this year that Russia will build a new military training facility in southern Tajikistan to help the two countries carry out drills together. “Russian soldiers will help their Tajikistani colleagues in setting up a new polygon, Armageddon, in the southern Khatlon province for joint training of military units of the two countries,” Poshchupkin noted. The announcement was made during exercises at the Russian military base in Tajikistan.
