#5486
[Second Issue of the Day]
#2
Trud-7
October 11, 2001
RUSSIA DOESN'T HAVE RELIABLE BORDERS WITH THE CONFLICT
ZONE
Russia and its allies are vulnerable to the Afghan threat
DMITRY ROGOZIN AND GLEB PAVLOVSKY COMMENT ON BORDER SECURITY BETWEEN
RUSSIA, CENTRAL ASIAN CIS NATIONS, AND AFGHANISTAN. THE BORDERS
BETWEEN AFGHANISTAN AND TAJIKISTAN, UZBEKISTAN, AND TURKMENISTAN ARE
POORLY PROTECTED, WITH THE WESTERN PART BEING THE LEAST PROTECTED.
Two thousand and seventy kilometers of the borders between
Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are poorly
protected, with the western part being the least protected. Its
eastern part (1,200 kilometers), the border with Tajikistan runs by
the mountains to a considerable extent. 10,000 Russian soldiers cannot
reliably defend it all, as drug trafficking shows. Still, they are
doing what they can. Officers of the 201st Motorized Infantry Division
stationed in Tajikistan admit that the unit will encounter serious
difficulties if attacked from Afghanistan.
The Uzbekistan-Afghanistan border is 130 kilometers long. "I
think it is guarded, but worse, of course, than it was in Soviet
times," says Dmitry Rogozin, Chairman of the International Committee
of the Russian Duma, who has access to classified documents.
As for the border with Turkmenistan - 470 kilometers - "it is
essentially unguarded, open to everyone and everything," according to
Rogozin. He says there is another problem as well namely that "the
border between Russia and all these countries is open." From
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan (all of them CIS nations) it
is possible to cross into Russia with local passports, with old Soviet
passports (20 million of them are still in use), or even with birth
certificates. Gleb Pavlovsky, head of the analytical center at the
Kremlin, comments: "There are no bona fide borders between Russia and
the conflict area. This conflict area ought to be isolated..."
The vulnerability of Russia and its allies to the threat
presented by Afghanistan was discussed by secretaries of Security
Councils of CIS Central Asian states, Russia, and Armenia that opened
in Dushanbe.
- Back to the Top -