Troop withdrawal despite NATO fears: Russia exposes its external borders

Russia has stationed thousands of soldiers in neighboring countries and along important borders for decades. But the Ukraine war has bled the divisions dry in strategically important locations because President Vladimir Putin needs as many soldiers as possible in Ukraine.

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

But because as many soldiers as possible are needed in Ukraine, Russia has now almost completely withdrawn its military from the border with Norway. Only a maximum of 20 percent of the soldiers who were stationed here before the war in Ukraine are still on site, Norwegian Chief of General Staff Eirik Kristoffersen said last week.

Kristoffersen is convinced that the decision to regroup the troops primarily shows that Putin actually sees no threat in NATO. “If he believed that we threatened Russia, he would not have sent his troops to the war in Ukraine.”

“Russia knows that NATO is not a threat”

The same applies to the 1,300 kilometer long border with Finland, added the chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer. “Russia knows that NATO is not a threat because we have no intention of attacking them. Otherwise they would have reacted completely differently to Finland joining NATO.”

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

This also applies to the military units in Kaliningrad. The oblast lies between Poland, Lithuania and Belarus on the Baltic Sea. The Russian exclave has been an important military outpost for Moscow for decades. Russia has now significantly reduced its troop strength here too – the reason is the lack of soldiers on the front in Ukraine.

Fewer soldiers in separatist areas

The Russian military presence has also declined in the separatist areas 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 soldiers in the region that has broken away from Georgia. However, there are now reports from Georgia that there is hardly any military presence anymore. “If we are currently observing the bases, we can clearly see that there are very few personnel stationed there,” said Lascha Beridze at Euronews. The colonel of the Georgian army reserve assumes that Russia has given priority to sending the soldiers to the front in Ukraine.

This also applies to the second breakaway region on Georgian territory. Since the Georgia war in 2008, Russia has stationed around 1,300 soldiers in Abkhazia. But the Russian armed forces also appear to have reduced their contingent in this separatist region, as an EU observation mission in Georgia recently reported. “They also moved out a lot of technology,” mission leader Dimitrios Karabalis reported in August.

Uncertainty about Belarus

Belarus is a special case. According to Ukrainian information, the number of Kremlin troops in the country of Putin’s loyal ally Alexander Lukashenko has also recently declined. In the summer, Kiev announced that almost all Russian troops withdrawn from Belarus had been.

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

But at the beginning of this month, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu suddenly announced that the planned “Zapad” maneuvers would be canceled this year and that the “exercises would take place in Ukraine instead.” The British Ministry of Defense had already expected this step in advance because the Russians had too few troops at their disposal.

Tajikistan no longer a buffer zone?

And in another former Soviet country, Russia is no longer the strong player it was in days gone by. Moscow played an important role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades and has stationed so-called peacekeepers in Armenia since 2020. “The Kremlin was clearly the protecting power of Armenia for over 30 years, and now Putin is working with Azerbaijan,” said Stephan Malerius, who heads the “Regional Program Political Dialogue South Caucasus” for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in a recent interview with ntv.de. It is unclear what will become of the approximately 2,000 Moscow soldiers in Armenia in the medium term.

Russia has also lost its power potential in Tajikistan. Around 7,000 soldiers were originally stationed in the Central Asian country because the Kremlin sees Tajikistan as a buffer zone to Afghanistan to the south. The base is one of the largest outside Russia. However, already reported last summer “Radio Free Europe”that Russia had withdrawn just over 2,000 soldiers and sent them to Ukraine. It is not known whether there have been further troop relocations since then.

Putin has also had some of his troops withdrawn from neighboring Kyrgyzstan. It is estimated that up to 500 Russian soldiers were stationed here. Most came from the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia, one of Russia’s poorest regions. Research by “Radio Free Europe” show that “at least 90 soldiers from Tuva” were first taken to the military base in Kant in Kyrgyzstan and from there sent on to Ukraine – “against their will.”

War equipment withdrawn from Pacific island

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

In 2020, the Russian military stationed several systems on the 1,200 kilometer long island chain. It is suspected that Russia now needs the S-300 air defense systems in the west of the country to protect itself from Ukrainian air attacks.

In addition, military equipment is also said to have disappeared from the more northerly Pacific island of Sakhalin, as satellite images also show. Old Soviet tanks and howitzers were stationed here until recently, but now, according to Japanese reports, they are said to have been repaired and maintained in surrounding factories. Most likely to use the tanks and howitzers in Ukraine too.