The Panjdeh Incident or Panjdeh Scare (Russian: Афганский кризис, Afghan Crisis or Бой за Кушку, Battle of Kushka) was a military skirmish that occurred in
1885 when
Russian forces seized
Afghan territory south of the
Oxus River around an
oasis at
Panjdeh. Competing Russian and British interests in Central and South Asia had for years been the cause of a virtual
cold war known euphemistically as
The Great Game, and the Panjdeh Incident came close to triggering full scale armed conflict.