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

In the far north, Russia shares a border with NATO member Norway. It is less than 200 kilometers long, but it remains geopolitically explosive, especially since the Kremlin forces invaded Ukraine.

But due to the need for as many soldiers as possible in Ukraine, Russia has now almost completely withdrawn its military forces from the border with Norway. Norwegian Chief of General Staff Erik Christophersen said last week that only a maximum of 20% of the soldiers who were stationed here before the war in Ukraine were still at the site.

Kristofferson is convinced that the decision to regroup forces shows primarily that Putin does not actually see any threat in NATO. “If he thought we were a threat to Russia, he would not have sent his troops to war in Ukraine.”

“Russia knows that NATO does not pose a threat.”

NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer added that the same applies to the 1,300-kilometre-long border with Finland. „Russia knows that NATO does not pose a threat because we have no intention of attacking them. Otherwise, they would have reacted completely differently to Finland joining NATO,” he added.

In April this year, Moscow initially announced an increase in its military presence near the border. But nothing happened; Instead, Putin’s forces appear to need every available soldier in Ukraine.

This also applies to military units in Kaliningrad. The region is located between Poland, Lithuania and Belarus on the Baltic Sea. The Russian enclave has been an important military outpost for Moscow for decades. Russia has now significantly reduced the number of its troops here as well – the reason is the shortage of soldiers on the front in Ukraine.

Fewer soldiers in separatist areas

Russia’s military presence in Georgia’s separatist regions has also decreased. Moscow has considered the self-declared Republic of South Ossetia to be an independent state since 2008. As a result, Russia has deployed soldiers in the region that broke away from Georgia. However, there are now reports from Georgia that there is almost no military presence anymore. He added: „If we were monitoring the bases currently, we could clearly see that there were very few individuals stationed there.” “Lasha Beridze said on Euronews. The colonel of the Georgian Army Reserve assumes that Russia has given priority to sending 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 deployed about 1,300 soldiers in Abkhazia. But it also appears that the Russian Armed Forces have reduced the number of their forces in this breakaway region, as a European Union monitoring mission in Georgia recently reported. “They also transferred a lot of technology,” mission commander Dimitrios Karaballis said in August.

Uncertainty about Belarus

Belarus is a special case. According to Ukrainian information, the number of Kremlin forces in the country belonging to Putin’s loyal ally Alexander Lukashenko has also decreased recently. Kyiv announced this in the summer Almost all Russian forces withdrew from Belarus He was.

However, in mid-August, several hundred soldiers arrived in the neighboring country again to participate in a major military exercise conducted by the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in September. According to opposition media in Belarus, about 2,000 Russian soldiers reside in four military bases in the country.

But at the beginning of this month, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu suddenly announced that the planned Zapad exercises would be canceled this year, and that „the exercises will take place in Ukraine instead.” The British Ministry of Defense had already anticipated this move in advance because the Russians had very few forces at their disposal.

Tajikistan is no longer a buffer zone?

In another former Soviet country, Russia is no longer the strong player it was in recent days. Moscow has played an important role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades, and has deployed so-called peacekeeping forces in Armenia since 2020. Stefan Mallerius, who heads the “Regional Program for Political Dialogue in the South Caucasus” of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said in an interview. Recently: “It is clear that the Kremlin has been the protecting power of Armenia for more than 30 years, and now Putin is working with Azerbaijan.” ntv.de. It is unclear what will happen to Moscow’s approximately 2,000 soldiers in Armenia in the medium term.

Russia has also lost its power potential in Tajikistan. About 7,000 soldiers were originally stationed in the Central Asian country because the Kremlin considers Tajikistan a buffer zone against Afghanistan in the south. The base is one of the largest outside Russia. However, I already mentioned it last summer „Radio Free Europe”Russia withdrew just over 2,000 soldiers and sent them to Ukraine. It is not known whether there have been further troop transfers since then.

Putin also ordered the withdrawal of some of his forces from neighboring Kyrgyzstan. It is estimated that up to 500 Russian soldiers are stationed here. Most of them came from the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia, one of the poorest regions in Russia. Search by „Radio Free Europe” They show that „at least 90 Tuvan soldiers” were first taken to the military base in Kant in Kyrgyzstan and from there sent to Ukraine – „against their will.”

Withdrawal of military equipment from the Pacific island

The extent of Russia’s regrouping is also demonstrated by the transfer of military equipment. Moscow recently withdrew air defense systems from the strategically important Kuril Islands, an archipelago north of Japan claimed equally by Russia and Japan. This is shown through satellite images evaluated by Japanese political scientist Yu Koizumi.

In 2020, the Russian military deployed several systems on the 1,200-kilometre-long island chain. It is suspected that Russia now needs 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 North 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 be repaired and maintained in surrounding factories. Tanks and howitzers are likely to be used in Ukraine as well.