Russia will fully upgrade the equipment at its military base in Tajikistan ahead of the U.S.'s withdrawal from Afghanistan, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said. That will also entail making the unit based there into a division again, after it was downgraded to a brigade in 2009, Shoigu said in remarks on Russian television:

"We are moving [the base] to a division structure, by December we will complete this division to about 80 percent, and by the time of elections in Afghanistan and the departure of the coalition forces we will complete it 100 percent with the newest weaponry and military equipment."

Shoigu didn't give any information about whether or not the base, known as the 201st, would receive any new soldiers, but it stands to reason that the upgrade to a division (which usually consists of two brigades) would involve such a move.

Russian officials have in the past given some indication of the equipment upgrades that are intended for the 201st. An unnamed, high-ranking military official told Izvestia last year that most of the base's equipment dated from the 1980s and that all of the vehicles would be upgraded (except for tanks, which are already relatively up-to-date T-72s). The new equipment would include Tigr and Rys all-terrain vehicles and Tor air defense systems, among other equipment.

But according to that story the timeline for the upgrades was 2015, so Shoigu's announcement means that they are intending to accelerate that by a year. And this just after the announcement that Russia would double its footprint at its main base in Kyrgyzstan, as well.

UPDATE: A couple readers have written in to suggest there is little reason to expect that the move to a division would entail additional Russian troops being sent to Tajikistan. One notes that Russia's armed forces are already 22 percent undermanned, and so sending more soldiers to Tajikistan is unlikely. Another places this move in the context of Shoigu's larger defense reforms: he is upgrading many brigades to divisions, but that it isn't yet clear whether that will result in any change in fighting power. To be continued...