Terrorist attack President Putin does not mention IS “Ukraine is behind it”. Tajikistan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a country in Central Asia bordering China and Afghanistan, with a population of approximately 10.1 million.
It is highly dependent on Russia economically and militarily, and relies on overseas remittances for about one-third of its GDP. In 2015, a former commander of Tajik security services defected after vowing to join the Islamic State group.