In a telephone conversation, presidents of Russia and Tajikistan discussed bilateral relations and the international situation

In a telephone conversation on January 3, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Emomali Rahmon, President of the Republic of Tajikistan, exchanged warm New Year’s greetings and touched upon several topical issues of bilateral cooperation as a follow-up to their talks in St Petersburg on December 27, kremlin.ru reports.
The 201st military base stationed in Tajikistan is an important component of the CSTO Collective Security System and the largest military facility of the Russian Federation outside the country.
It includes motorized rifle, tank, artillery and reconnaissance units, as well as units of air defence, NBC protection and communications.
In accordance with the 2021 Collective Forces equipment plan, the base was supplied with modernized T-72B3M tanks, BMP-2M infantry fighting vehicles, Verba MANPADS, 12.7 mm NSV Utes machine guns, Kornet anti-tank portable missile systems and Aistenok portable radar reconnaissance and fire control systems.
As you may recall, at the end of December in an interview to a correspondent of the newspaper of the Russian Ministry of Defence Krasnaya Zvezda, Colonel General Aleksandr Lapin, commander of the Central Military District, said that in case of a military threat to the national security of Russia and its allies, units of these bases “will be the first to assume the entire burden of the developing situation.”
“Russian military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are essentially our ‘combat vanguard’ in the South; they are the most important component of the CSTO Collective Forces in the Central Asian region. That is why their combat readiness, rearmament and infrastructure development are given close attention,” added Aleksandr Lapin.