Troop withdrawal despite NATO fears: Russia exposes its external borders

Russia has stationed thousands of soldiers in neighboring countries and on important borders for decades. But the war in Ukraine has dried up divisions in strategically important places, as President Vladimir Putin wants as many soldiers as possible in Ukraine.

To the north, Russia shares a border with NATO member Norway. Less than 200 kilometers long, but still highly explosive geopolitically, especially since Kremlin troops invaded Ukraine.

But Russia has now fully withdrawn its troops from Norway’s border, needing as many soldiers as possible in Ukraine. At most 20 percent of soldiers stationed here before the war in Ukraine are still on base, Norway’s chief of staff, Erik Kristofferson, said last week.

Christopherson is convinced that the decision to regroup the troops primarily shows that Putin really sees no threat in NATO. “If he believed we were threatening Russia, he wouldn’t send his troops to war in Ukraine.”

“Russia knows NATO is not a threat”

The same applies to the 1,300-kilometer border with Finland, said Admiral Rob Bauer, head of NATO’s military group. “Russia knows that NATO is not a threat because we have no intention of attacking them. Otherwise they would have behaved completely differently to Finland joining NATO.”

In April this year, Moscow initially announced an increase in its military presence near the border. But nothing came of it; Instead, Putin’s troops need every soldier in Ukraine.

The same applies to military units in Kaliningrad. The region is located on the Baltic Sea between Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. The Russian exclave has been an important military outpost for Moscow for decades. Russia has now significantly reduced its troop strength here as well – due to the lack of troops at the front in Ukraine.

Fewer soldiers in separatist areas

Russian military presence has also been reduced in separatist regions of Georgia. The self-proclaimed republic of South Ossetia has been viewed by Moscow as an independent state since 2008. As a result, Russia has stationed troops in the region that broke away from Georgia. However, there are reports from Georgia that there is now no military presence. “If we were to observe the sites now, we could clearly see that very few personnel were stationed there.” Lascha Beridze said at Euronews. A Georgian army reserve colonel believes Russia has prioritized sending troops to the frontline in Ukraine.

This also applies to the second separatist part of the Georgian territory. Since the Georgia war in 2008, Russia has stationed around 1,300 troops in Abkhazia. But Russian armed forces also appear to have reduced their forces in the separatist region, an EU monitoring mission in Georgia recently reported. “They’ve moved a lot of technology,” mission chief Dimitrios Karabalis said in August.

Uncertainty about Belarus

Belarus is a special case. According to Ukrainian reports, the number of Kremlin troops in the country of Alexander Lukashenko, a loyal ally of Putin, has also recently decreased. In the summer, Kiev announced it Almost all Russian troops were withdrawn from Belarus was

However, in mid-August, several hundred soldiers returned to the neighboring country to take part in a major military exercise by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in September. According to opposition media in Belarus, about 2,000 Russian soldiers are stationed at four military bases in the country.

But earlier this month, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu suddenly announced that this year’s planned “Zhabat” maneuvers would be canceled and instead “exercises will take place in Ukraine.” The British Ministry of Defense had already anticipated this move because the Russians had very few troops at their disposal.

Tajikistan no longer a buffer zone?

In another ex-Soviet country, Russia is not the strong player it was in days gone by. Moscow has played a key role in the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and has stationed so-called peacekeepers in Armenia since 2020. “The Kremlin has clearly been Armenia’s protecting power for more than 30 years, and now Putin is working with Azerbaijan,” said Stefan Malarius, who heads the “Regional Political Dialogue South Caucasus” for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. ntv.de. What will happen to the roughly 2,000 Moscow soldiers in Armenia in the medium term is unclear.

Russia has also lost its power in Tajikistan. About 7,000 soldiers were initially stationed in the Central Asian country because the Kremlin views Tajikistan as a buffer zone to Afghanistan to the south. The foundation is one of the largest outside Russia. However, it was already announced last summer “Radio Free Europe”Russia withdrew just 2,000 soldiers and sent them to Ukraine. It is not known whether more soldiers were transferred since then.

Putin has withdrawn some troops from neighboring Kyrgyzstan. It is estimated that around 500 Russian soldiers are stationed here. Most come from the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia, one of Russia’s poorest regions. Study by “Radio Free Europe” “At least 90 soldiers from Duva” were first taken to the Kant military base in Kyrgyzstan and from there sent to Ukraine – “against their will”.

War equipment was withdrawn from the Pacific Islands

The degree to which Russia has reintegrated is shown by the transfer of military equipment. Moscow recently withdrew air defense systems from the strategically important Kuril Islands, an archipelago north of Japan that is equally claimed by Russia and Japan. This is shown by satellite images evaluated by Japanese political scientist Yu Koizumi.

In 2020, the Russian military deployed several formations along the 1,200-kilometer island chain. Russia is now suspected of needing S-300 air defense systems in the western part of the country to defend itself against Ukrainian airstrikes.

In addition, military equipment is also reported missing from the North Pacific island of Sakhalin, as satellite images show. Old Soviet tanks and howitzers were stationed here until recently, but now, according to Japanese reports, they are said to be being repaired and maintained in surrounding factories. Ukraine also has the possibility of using tanks and howitzers.