Science to wait

Sergey Strokan
Servicemen of Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan on Thursday will begin exercises on the Tajik-Afghan border, which will be a continuation of the Russian-Uzbek maneuvers that started in the Surkhandarya region. The exercises on the southern borders of the CIS are designed to increase the region’s readiness to repel the threat of infiltration of terrorist formations from Afghanistan, where the Taliban are continuing offensive battles with government forces.
The hasty strengthening of the border with Afghanistan means that Moscow and its partners are preparing for the most unfavorable scenario, despite the Taliban’s promises not to create problems in Central Asia and the active contacts of Russian diplomacy with them.
Border exercise
The trilateral exercises of Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, starting Thursday in the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, will last until August 10 and will become the most ambitious maneuvers on the border with Afghanistan. Moscow and Dushanbe, members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Tashkent, which suspended its membership in the CSTO back in 2012, is hastily forming a “triangle of containment” of the growing terrorist threat emanating from neighboring Afghanistan. The military of the three countries will practice the conduct of hostilities to defeat illegal armed groups that have invaded the territory of the union state.
More than 2,500 servicemen, including 1,800 Russian military personnel, will take part in the maneuvers on the Tajik-Afghan border, in the Khatlon region of Tajikistan. base), and about 500 units of weapons and military equipment will be involved.
To participate in the maneuvers, Mi-8 transport and combat helicopters and Mi-24 attack helicopters were also deployed from the Novosibirsk region of the Russian Federation to the Tajik airfield Gissar. “The An-124-100 Ruslan heavy transport aircraft delivered four combat vehicles from Russia. At the main stage of the joint exercise, the army aviation crews will ensure the landing of tactical troops and air support for the advancing troops in the course of the destruction of the illegal armed formation, ”the press service of the Central Military District said.
Trilateral exercises in Tajikistan will be a continuation of the Russian-Uzbek exercises, which started on Monday at the Termez mountain range near the border with Afghanistan. During the exercise, which will also last until August 10 and will be held in the Surkhandarya region, bordering Afghanistan, servicemen will work out joint actions to ensure the territorial integrity of the Central Asian states.
About 1,500 servicemen of the two countries and about 200 pieces of military equipment, including a link of assault aircraft from the Russian Kant airbase in Kyrgyzstan, an aviation component of the CSTO collective rapid reaction forces, are involved in the exercises on the territory of Uzbekistan.
In the first days of the exercises, special forces units of the two countries made a 15-kilometer march, breaking through anti-personnel obstacles, a moat with water, a destroyed wall and a tunnel, and also performed army tactical shooting exercises. In addition, the servicemen practiced reconnaissance and search operations in mountainous terrain, arranging ambushes on the routes of a mock enemy, and completed a set of small arms missions using devices for silent shooting.
Fights in Afghanistan
The sharp intensification of anti-terrorist cooperation between Russia and its partners in Central Asia has become a game of anticipation in the context of the ongoing Taliban offensive, crowding government troops.
“In general, of course, the events in Afghanistan are developing according to a crisis scenario. The situation is literally degrading every day, the Taliban movement (banned in the Russian Federation – “Kommersant” ) controls more and more of the territory of this country, and the future of Afghanistan seems very, very vague, “- said in an interview with TASS Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin.
In turn, the released UN Security Council report ( .pdf ) on the situation in Afghanistan notes that after the failures of last year, the international terrorist organizations Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda (both are prohibited in RF). As follows from the report, IS and Al-Qaeda militants are using the Afghan confrontation for their own purposes, quickly occupying the emerging “gray zones” of security, and have already been able to significantly strengthen themselves in the provinces of Nuristan, Badghis, Sari-Pul, Baghlan, Badakhshan, Kunduz and Kabul. By attacking government and security forces, international terrorists also kill civil servants and humanitarian workers. At the same time, their priority task is to create an extensive network of underground cells and replenish their ranks by recruiting part of the Taliban militants who reject any possibility of peace agreements with Kabul and will be ready to make a choice in favor of alternative, more well-known and more externally supported Islamist projects. …
Against this background, the confrontation parties in Afghanistan continue to exchange blows, bleeding each other, which inevitably entails the strengthening of the third, shadow force in the person of international terrorist groups. As reported on Wednesday in the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Afghanistan, in battles with government forces over the past day, 274 Taliban militants have been eliminated. The most active battles were fought in the provinces of Nangarhar, Logar, Kandahar, Farah, Herat, Jauzjan, Balkh, Samangan, Faryab, Sari-Pul, Helmand, Takhar, Kunduz, Baghlan, Kapisa and Kabul.
In turn, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the home of Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Muhammadi in Kabul. “This attack is the start of retaliatory operations against those circles and leaders of the Kabul government who ordered attacks and bombings in various parts of the country,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Non-governmental humanitarian organizations also report dozens of civilians killed and hundreds of injured in the past two days alone.
“We are facing an invasion of international terrorism led by the Taliban. Currently, there are military operations in 31 of 34 provinces of Afghanistan, ” Minister-Counselor of the Afghan Embassy in Russia Mokhtaat Khomayun said on Wednesday on the air to Ekho Moskvy.
“Our state is recognized by the international community, is a member of the UN, recognized by all countries of the world. We will not allow the transfer of power and the state to a completely incomprehensible terrorist organization, ”the Afghan diplomat said, expressing the opinion that“ the Taliban do not know at all what to do with the government, and will destroy and kill everything that goes wrong and thinks like them. “
The tough actions of the parties to the Afghan confrontation indicate that the prospects for a political settlement, which Moscow is actively calling for, have now come to naught. In one of his latest statements on Afghanistan, calling the Taliban “sane people”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on the parties to the conflict to start negotiations as soon as possible. “They very clearly stated that they have no plans to create problems for the Central Asian neighbors of Afghanistan, that they will uncompromisingly continue to fight IS and that they are ready to discuss the political structure of the state with other Afghans,” Sergei Lavrov said. However, the military exercises taking place on the border with Afghanistan in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan show that Moscow and its partners are preparing for the worst scenario, despite the Taliban’s promises not to create problems in Central Asia and active contacts with them by Russian diplomacy.