Alexander Velovich and Victor Beltsov/MOSCOW AND DUSHANBE
WHILE WESTERN attention in the past weeks has once again focused on the conflict in Afghanistan, Russia has quietly been waging a "war" in one of its neighbouring states, continuing to use air force and border-guard units for air operations in support of border-guard activities in Tadjikistan against Muslim insurgents.
The region neighbours, Afghanistan, and tensions have risen considerably since the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban group captured Afghani capital Kabul in early October and Government forces mounted a counter-offensive.
The international airport at Dushanbe is being used by Mil Mi-8 Hip and Mi-24 Hind and Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot units in the campaign against the Muslim opposition. There is circumstantial evidence that the Su-25 units have undertaken missions within Afghanistan. The rebel forces in Tadjikistan have no combat aircraft, which would justify the Su-25 carrying the Vympel R-60 (AA-8 Aphid) short-range infra-red guided air-to-air missile.
Russian border guards and the Joint Peacekeeping Forces of the CIS (which are also mostly Russian) have been deployed on the border with Afghanistan, where Muslim opposition to the Russian-supported Tadjik Government has its bases.
Despite Russia's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, the conflict still brings Russian casualties. In late September, the crew of an Mi-8 were killed when the helicopter was shot down while delivering supplies to a Russian border guard post in the mountains.
While fuel shortages limit the average Russian military pilot to around 30 flight hours in a year, in Tadjikistan all combat pilots are logging 300-400h. Russia's Federal Border-guards Service (FBS) helicopter squadron, based at Moskovsky settlement is the busiest.
BATTLE DAMAGE
Since the FBS unit was deployed to the border in mid-1995, it has flown almost 2,000 combat missions supporting the border-guard of Kalaikhumb, Khorog, Moskovsky and Pyange detachments.
Many of the posts in the mountains rely entirely on helicopter supplies. Some of them are at altitudes of almost 10,000ft (3,000m) with helipads measuring only 5 x 8m, so, with the weather rapidly changing in the mountains, flying alone is not easy, without the added complication of enemy fire.
Squadron commander Lt Col Sergey Bykov says that, in the first three months of this year, more than 1,000 rockets were fired at the picket in the Turg mountains, and the 12th frontier post, frequently forcing pilots to take off even before the helicopters were unloaded. Of eight helicopters in the squadron, six have sustained combat damage.
The 23rd Air Regiment of Russia's FBS aviation is based at Dushanbe and has Mi-8s and Mi-24s, as well as Antonov An-24/26 transports in its inventory. While standard helicopter weapons include the 80mm S-8 air-to-surface rockets, Mi-8s are now frequently being used as bombers dropping 100/250/500kg high-explosive/fragmentation and incendiary bombs.
The border guards engineers have installed satellite navigation systems in their Mi-8s, and now these are being used as navigation aids for "medium-altitude" bombing missions. The Mi-8s of the 23rd Dushanbe air regiment are the only ones in Russian military aviation equipped for such missions. Effective close-air-support is viewed as having been a decisive factor in the repulse of the rebels' onslaught earlier this year. It claimed that the opposition lost up to 450 combatants from air attacks.
Since July, when a cease-fire agreement was signed between the Tadjik Government and the rebels in Ashkhabad, the situation has remained tense, but relatively stable.
Now, with apparent support from the new "authorities" in Kabul, the rebels are reported to be preparing for a new offensive. This time it may be harder to withstand, mostly because of the lack of money needed to keep the aircraft in operational condition.
Of the 16 helicopters now in the front-line squadrons of Khorog and Moskovsky, only two are airworthy. Most helicopters need to have the life of their engines and main gearboxes extended, according to standard maintenance procedures at a repair plant in the Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye. Lifetime extension costs $3,500 per engine and the 23rd air regiment alone already owes $80,000 to Zaporozhye plant, but the FBS cannot pay even this debt.
Source: Flight International
