Putin used Central Asia as a 'hybrid war' training ground for Ukraine (part 1): The April 2010 crisis and violent change of power in Kyrgyzstan.

Russia has been conducting ‘hybrid wars’ around its former Soviet empire long before the rest of us had even heard the term. Today, an expert from Central Asia takes us 15 years back in time.

BY ASKAT DUKENBAEV

In March 2019, the Russian YouTube program ‘Vesti RARAN’ (‘News from the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences’, no less) aired revelations from Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov of GRU (Russian military intelligence), who served as the commander of the 15th Special Forces – Spetsnaz – Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces in Tajikistan in 1992.

In the video-interview (later deleted) as well as in his other memoirs, Kvachkov spoke openly about his and Russia’s involvement in provoking the Tajik Civil War that lasted five years and claimed around 60,000 lives.

On other occasions, Kvachkov claimed that he had “on Moscow’s orders” organized five brigades of ‘militiamen’ and sent them to southern Tajikistan. He justified forming brigades instead of divisions by describing the conflict as a “network-centric” or a “hybrid” war.

Kvachkov also detailed his role in creating the pro-government Popular Front (whoe leadership was staffed by former KGB officers) and recruiting fighters. In this regard, the 10,000 Russian soldiers at the 201st military division (base) were instrumental in securing the Tajik capital Dushanbe for Emomali Rahmon’s regime, supported by Russian border troops and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping force that included soldiers from neighboring Uzbekistan. The intervention echoed patterns seen later in Ukraine – superior communications, media backing, and a dispersed presence of foreign (mainly, Russian and Uzbek) military forces, including air support.

The war - arguably Moscow’s first ‘hybrid war’ in post-Soviet Central Asia - ended with a power-sharing agreement between the Russian-backed government and the Islamist-democratic opposition. However, it left a deep political trauma, severely undermined the democratic aspirations of newly independent, post-Soviet Tajikistan – and ultimately paved the way for the establishment of a dictatorship under the current president, Emomali Rahmon, who has held power since 1994 (31 years and counting, his many children and large family occupying the majority of important positions in the country).

The Gerasimov Doctrine

As for the Colonel Kvachkov’s ‘adventures’ in Tajikistan, we have seen similar stories elsewhere. Twenty years later, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russian FSB Colonel General Igor Girkin (also known by the alias ‘Strelkov,’ meaning ‘Shooter’) admitted[6] to playing a leading role in instigating the separatist conflict in 2014. As the head of a guerrilla unit, he helped trigger the unrest that paved the way for Russia’s takeover of parts of Donbas that same year. Given the gravity of the evidence, it is worth quoting in full from his November 2014 interview with Russia’s far-right, revanchist newspaper Zavtra (Tomorrow), where he stated:

“I was the one who pulled the trigger for this war… If our unit hadn't crossed the border, everything would have fizzled out - like in [the Ukrainian city of] Kharkiv, like in Odesa. There would have been several dozen killed, burned, detained. And that would have been the end of it. But the flywheel of the war, which is continuing to this day, was spun by our unit. We mixed up all the cards on the table.”

As a reminder, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, clashes erupted between pro-Ukrainian and Moscow-backed activists also in Kharkiv and Odesa, with over 40 people killed in an Odesa fire in early May. Girkin-Strelkov’s interview appeared in November 2014, the same day the UN released a report confirming the presence of Russian fighters in eastern Ukraine (something long denied by the Kremlin) - where over 4,300 people had died since mid-April. In the years that followed, especially after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the war would claim hundreds of thousands more lives.

Both cases – Tajikistan of 1992 and Ukraine of 2014 – are united by a common thread of covert destabilization, later dubbed ‘hybrid warfare’, orchestrated by Russia to maintain its influence over the newly independent republics of the fragmented Soviet empire. Other examples include the conflict in Moldova’s Transnistria region, the Azerbaijan-Armenia war over Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia’s backing of separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Less violent – but no less strategic – were Russia’s non-military interventions, many little known beyond the region, targeting states along the former Soviet empire’s borders from the outset of its dissolution at the end of the 1980s-early 1990s, spanning from Estonia in the Baltics to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia – via the deliberately conflict-ridden Caucasus.

This approach to destabilization, which blends military, political, informational, economic, and increasingly cyber tactics below the threshold of conventional warfare, is widely associated with the so-called ‘Gerasimov Doctrine’, a term coined by Mark Galeotti in his blog In Moscow’s Shadows in 2014.

Named after General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, who himself openly outlined his doctrine in an article in 2013, ‘the Gerasimov Doctrine’ emphasizes the integration of all elements of state power to achieve strategic goals while avoiding direct military confrontation.

The conflicts in Tajikistan, Donbas, and other regional hotspots in the former Soviet Union – and the increasingly escalating and violent campaign of sabotage and subversion against European and U.S. targets in Europe nowadays – exemplify the practical application of these principles, illustrating how Russia pursues its geopolitical interests through multidimensional, hybrid means.

Kyrgyzstan between Russia and the U.S.

The events of 2010 in Kyrgyzstan – the ouster of the increasingly authoritarian and corrupt President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his family in April, followed by a major and bloody interethnic conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in the southern regions that June – offer another revealing example of Russia’s hybrid approach to regional conflicts.

By the beginning of 2010, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev (2005-2010), who himself had come to power during a popular uprising against President Askar Akayev in 2005, was facing mounting challenges.

Domestically, Bakiyev’s rule was marred by the persecution of political opponents – including assassination of prominent figures – attacks on critical journalists and civil society activists, worsening social and economic problems, and widespread corruption (an unaddressed leftover from the previous regime).

On the international front, Bakiyev faced increasing pressure from Russia to shut down the U.S.-led airbase in Kyrgyzstan, a critical logistical hub for Western military operations in Afghanistan.

In February 2009, during a visit to Moscow, President Bakiyev announced the closure of the U.S. Manas Air Base after securing $2 billion in aid and credit pledges from Russia. However, in a striking reversal just months later, Bakiyev agreed to allow continued U.S. use of the base – now renamed the Manas Transit Center – in exchange for $60 million annually, up from the previous $17.4 million.

In hindsight, this deal with Washington may have marked a turning point for Bakiyev’s regime, provoking Moscow’s anger and likely contributing to the subsequent deterioration in Kyrgyzstan-Russia relations– culminating in President Bakiyev’s violent ouster.

The April 2010 Kyrgyzstan Coup and Russian Hybrid Influence

Less than a year later, on April 7, 2010, mass protests erupted in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, driven by widespread anger over Bakiyev’s authoritarian rule, corruption, and the worsening economic conditions.

The unrest was preceded by violent clashes a day earlier in the city of Talas, located in the western end of the country, where protesters confronted security forces and seized the Interior Minister – an early sign of the regime’s unraveling. In Bishkek, the protests escalated into fierce confrontations with security forces, culminating in the storming of key government buildings. At least 87 people were killed and hundreds injured, many shot by snipers positioned on rooftops around the central Ala-Too Square. The use of sharpshooters against civilians is a grim parallel to the events that would unfold at Maidan protests in Kyiv four years later. President Bakiyev fled the capital and, after briefly seeking refuge in southern Kyrgyzstan and reportedly stopping in Kazakhstan, eventually went into exile in Belarus.

It is important to note that Russia’s role in the events leading to Bakiyev’s ouster did receive considerable attention from Western experts and media, as exemplified by regular reporting from Stratfor (currently part of the RANE Network). As one expert correctly pointed out, no direct involvement by Russia has been found and President Putin publicly denied any interference.

However, we are dealing with the ‘shadow zones’ of hybrid tactics, where ‘plausible deniability’ is most often part of the strategy.

Most of us only realized this clever Russian ‘deniability game’ in 2014 when Crimea was occupied by Putin’s so-called ‘little green men’ - soldiers in what looked like Russian army uniforms but without official insignia.

According to the Russian President, these soldiers “are local self-defense units, it seems to me.”

When a reporter suggested to the Russian President that the armed men wore “uniforms strongly resembling Russian Army uniforms”, Putin responded: “Take a look at the post-Soviet states. There are many uniforms there that are similar. You can go any store and buy any kind of uniform.”

That very same day, Ukrainian journalists published a video on YouTube in which some of the commandos occupying Crimea said of themselves and their colleagues: "We're Russians."

Furthermore, in Kyrgyzstan in 2010, attentive observers - both within Kyrgyzstan and abroad - noted that, on the eve of the events, Russian media, which at that point were absolutely dominant in Kyrgyzstan (to some extent, they still are), launched an intense attack against Bakiyev, accusing him of nepotism, corruption, repression, and other abuses. It is worth mentioning that such a public denunciation of ‘a legitimate ruler’ by the Kremlin is rare, especially given its usual tendency to support similar leaders – its so-called ‘trusted allies’ – in other former Soviet countries.

Over the past 100 years, Russian political history has repeatedly demonstrated that state-orchestrated media campaigns often serve as a prelude to a targeted onslaught against a public opponent – to be the regime victim.

At the same time, Russia withdrew its fuel subsidy to Kyrgyzstan, causing energy prices to skyrocket in early April. This sudden spike in prices mobilized many anti-Bakiyev demonstrations, which were driven by public outrage over inflation and the crushing rise in energy costs. Amidst the (dis)information war against the increasingly unpopular regime, Moscow’s influence was apparent.

By now - with the contours clearer - we can with a considerable degree of confidence point to Russia’s indirect involvement, exercised through the multifaceted tactics outlined in the so-called Gerasimov Doctrine. The most evident ‘hybrid’ examples in this case include destabilizing the regime by exploiting growing domestic deterioration and public discontent; amplifying unrest through (dis)information campaigns and propaganda; encouraging mass protests across various regions of the country; and providing swift recognition of the new government.

At the same time, without drifting into conspiratorial or unnecessary speculative thinking, we also cannot dismiss the possibility of direct involvement; despite the lack of concrete evidence, as an example of ‘unknown knowns’ – knowledge or information that is known in some sense but is forgotten, deliberately ignored, or not acknowledged, even though it should be considered.

But, at this moment in history, access to relevant FSB or GRU files would require a level of security clearance that is currently unavailable to researchers – perhaps future archival openings will provide greater clarity regarding these questions. Certainly, as we shall see in the next part of this series – as the April 2010 crisis in Kyrgyzstan deteriorated into horrible, deadly ethnic violence in June 2010 in the southern part of the country, there seems to have been more of a direct Russian involvement.

Dr. Askat Dukenbaev is a scholar and activist from Central Asia. He earned a Ph.D. in political science from Kent State University in 2017. He is currently residing and working in Cleveland, Ohio.