The Russian military has for the first time deployed the S-300 surface-to-air missile system at its military base near Afghanistan, the Defense Ministry has announced. Russia maintains troops at its military base in the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan, near the Afghan border, as a bulwark against the threat of Islamist radicals and drug trafficking. The United States fields 13,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led support mission.

Russia’s military said Saturday that it had sent a battalion of 30 launchers and other vehicles from central Russia to the base in Tajikistan to protect it from attacks. It said the S-300PS deployment also aims to provide air defense capabilities to the wider Central Asian region. “This is the first [S-300] missile system that will be on the border with Afghanistan, where international coalition forces are active,” an unnamed military source told the RBC news website. Russia’s Defense Ministry-run Zvezda channel published footage of the S-300 being loaded and transported to Tajikistan by rail.