Military of Tajikistan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Tajikistan's armed forces consist of Land Forces, Mobile Forces, Air and Air Defense Forces, Presidential National Guard, and Security Forces (internal and border troops). There are also significant Russian forces

Armed Forces of the Russian Federation

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the military services of Russia, established after the break-up of the Soviet Union. On 7 May 1992 Boris Yeltsin signed a decree establishing the Russian Ministry of Defence and placing all Soviet Armed Forces troops on the territory of the RSFSR...

in the country principally the 201st Motor Rifle Division.

Unlike the other former Soviet states of Central Asia, Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

did not form armed forces based upon former Soviet units on its territory. Instead, the Russian Ministry of Defence took control of the Dushanbe

Dushanbe

-Economy:Coal, lead, and arsenic are mined nearby in the cities of Nurek and Kulob allowing for the industrialization of Dushanbe. The Nurek Dam, the world's highest as of 2008, generates 95% of Tajikistan's electricity, and another dam, the Roghun Dam, is planned on the Vakhsh River...

-based 201st Motor Rifle Division; actually control simply shifted from the former district headquarters in Tashkent

Tashkent

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan and of the Tashkent Province. The officially registered population of the city in 2008 was about 2.2 million. Unofficial sources estimate the actual population may be as much as 4.45 million.-Early Islamic History:...

, which was in now-independent Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

, to Moscow. Also present in the country was a large contingent of Soviet border guards, which transitioned into a Russian-officered force with Tajik conscripts. For a long period a CIS

CIS

CIS usually refers to the Commonwealth of Independent States, a modern political entity consisting of eleven former Soviet Union republics.The acronym CIS may also refer to:-Organizations:...

peacekeeping force, built around the 201st MRD, was in place in the country.

Due to the presence of Russian forces in the country and the Civil war in Tajikistan, Tajikistan only formally legalised the existence of its armed forces in April 1994.

The armed forces were during the 1990s often poorly commanded, mostly badly disciplined, and with their equipment under-maintained. Draft-dodging and desertion was commonplace. Reflecting the fragmented militia group origin of the army’s units, in late 1995 the Mahmud (1st) and Faizali (11th) Brigades of the Army exchanged fire several times, and fighting again broke out between the Army Rapid Reaction Brigade (formerly the Mahmud Brigade) and the Presidential Guard in June 1996. Colonel Khudoiberdiev, commander of the Rapid Reaction Brigade was relieved of his command as a result.

Surface to Air Missile

SA-2 Guideline, SA-3 Goa, SA-7 Grail - 20

Light equipment

Makarov PM

The PM is a semi-automatic pistol design. Under the project leadership of Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov, it became the Soviet Union's standard military side arm from 1951-1991.-Development:...

TT-33

The TT-30 is a Russian semi-automatic pistol. It was developed in the early 1930s by Fedor Tokarev as a service pistol for the Soviet military to replace the Nagant M1895 revolver that had been in use since tsarist times, though it never fully replaced the M1895.-Development:In 1930, the...

AK-74

The AK-74 is an assault rifle developed in the early 1970s in the Soviet Union as the replacement for the earlier AKM...

AKM

The AKM is a 7.62mm assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is an upgraded version of the AK-47 rifle and was developed in the 1950s....

AK-47

The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...

RPK

The RPK is a 7.62x39mm light machine gun of Soviet design, developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the late 1950s, parallel with the AKM assault/battle rifle...

PKM

PK machine gun

The PK is a 7.62 mm general-purpose machine gun designed in the Soviet Union and currently in production in Russia. The PK machine gun was introduced in the 1960s and replaced the SGM and RPD machine guns in Soviet service...

NSV DShK

DShK

The DShK 1938 is a Soviet heavy machine gun firing the 12.7x108mm cartridge. The weapon was also used as a heavy infantry machine gun, in which case it was frequently deployed with a two-wheeled mounting and a single-sheet armour-plate shield...

Dragunov SVD RPG-7

RPG-7

The RPG-7 is a widely-produced, portable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Originally the RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and now manufactured by the Bazalt company...

RPG-18

The RPG-18 Mukha is a Russian short-range, disposable light anti-tank rocket launcher.-History:The RPG-18 is very similar to the US M72-series LAW anti-tank rocket and was developed after the Soviet military obtained M72s from its allies in Vietnam...

SPG-9

The SPG-9 Kopye is a Russian tripod-mounted man-portable, 73 millimetre calibre recoilless gun developed by the Soviet Union. It fires fin-stabilised, rocket-assisted HE and HEAT projectiles similar to those fired by the 73 mm 2A28 Grom low pressure gun of the BMP-1 vehicle...

Air Force

Because of the civil war, air force development was slow. The first equipment to arrive was 10 MI-8MTBs and 5 MI-24 in 1993 based at Dushanbe. The first transport aircraft were AN-24s(?) and AN-26s(?) were supplied in 1996. A plan from the 1990s to acquire SU-25s from Belarus to form an attack squadron did not occur. The Tajik Air Force remains small as Dushanbe doesn't expect an attack on the nation from the air and that Russian Air Force

Russian Air Force

The Russian Air Force is the air force of Russian Military. It is currently under the command of Colonel General Aleksandr Zelin. The Russian Navy has its own air arm, the Russian Naval Aviation, which is the former Soviet Aviatsiya Voyenno Morskogo Flota , or AV-MF).The Air Force was formed from...

units at Gissar in Tajikistan and other such Russian contingents in Kazakhstan would deter any such assault. The country is also patrolled by Russian aircraft as part of the Joint CIS Air Defense System

Joint CIS Air Defense System

Joint CIS Air Defense System is a unified system that comprises air defense units and elements of the former Soviet republics under control of AA Defense Coordinating Committee of the CIS. Currently there are de-facto 6 members of JADS: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and...

. However, Moscow did help bolster the Tajik's helicopter contingents in 2006-07 by giving them six Mil Mi-8

Mil Mi-8

The Mil Mi-8 is a medium twin-turbine transport helicopter that can also act as a gunship. The Mi-8 is the world's most-produced helicopter, and is used by over 50 countries. Russia is the largest operator of the Mi-8/Mi-17 helicopter....

and Mil Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters. It also provided four L-39 Albatros.

Aircraft Inventory

Mil Mi-24

The Mil Mi-24 is a large helicopter gunship and attack helicopter and low-capacity troop transport with room for 8 passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and operated since 1972 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and by over thirty other nations.In NATO circles the export...

|| || attack || Mi-24 || 4 || 8 in storage
|-----
| Mil Mi-8 Hip

Mil Mi-8

|| || transport || Mi-8 || 14 ||
|-----
| Tupolev Tu-134 Crusty

Tupolev Tu-134

The Tupolev Tu-134 is a twin-engined airliner, similar to the American Douglas DC-9 and the French Sud Aviation Caravelle, and built in the Soviet Union from 1966–1984. The original version featured a glazed-nose design and, like certain other Russian airliners , it can operate from unpaved...

|| || VIP || Tu-134A || 1 ||
|-----
| L-29 Delfin || || trainer || L-29 || unknown ||
|-----
| L-39 Albatros || || trainer || L-39C || 4 || former Russian

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