Russians in Pakistan are a small expatriate community and consist entirely of students, employees, families and diplomats stationed inside the country. During the nine-year

Soviet occupation of Afghanistan The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

had attempted to establish a commercial and industrial presence in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, by opening an Aeroflot office and setting up subsidiaries of steel and oil industries as well as a tractor factory. With only 56 Soviets in Pakistan in 1972, their numbers had suddenly jumped to 1,374 by 1980.In the name of Osama bin Laden: global terrorism & the bin Laden brotherhood
Roland Jacquard In his book, the French political expert Roland Jacquard mentions that Pakistani authorities, who were already opposed to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, became alarmed by the burgeoning increase of the population and entailed the Soviets to reduce their diplomatic presence in Islamabad by half. It has been alleged that during the time period, there was a strong presence of Soviet

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

agents in the country, who carried out spy work primarily from

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

and Islamabad in tandem with several hundred Afghan WAD agents, and monitored Pakistani aid to the Afghan mujahideen. According to Jacquard, one of the Soviet Union's objectives was to bring Pakistan under its sphere of influence and even when a sizeable number of Soviet diplomats were removed from operations in the country, there were approximately one-third who still worked for the

spy agency.

Notable people

Pakistani people of Russian origin: * Anna Molka Ahmed – artist and painter *

Nasreddin Murat-Khan Nasreddin Murat-Khan ِALA-LC: ; tr, Nasreddin Murat-han ; russian: Насреддин Муратханов ALA-LC: ; ur, ِALA-LC: (1904 – 15 October 1970) was a Russian-born Pakistani architect and civil engineer. He is renowned for ...

– architect of the Minar-e-Pakistan monument, of Dagestani background

References

{{Immigration to Pakistan

Immigration to Pakistan

Notable people

See also

References