Why Russia and Afghan Taliban warming up to each other?

Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev arrived in Islamabad this week for the first official visit by the country’s top domestic affairs official, highlighting growing concerns in Moscow about regional security on its southern flank.

Kolokoltsev's visit comes days after a meeting of the Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan -- which also includes Russia, China, India, and Iran -- where Pakistani and Taliban representatives clashed over allegations of their countries’ support for militants who could threaten stability well beyond their borders.

Official statements from Islamabad and Moscow have emphasized the strengthening of mutual ties, but analysts said Kolokoltsev’s four-day visit is more about Russia’s fears about the regional presence of Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K), known for high-profile assaults including the 2021 Kabul airport bombing, the 2024 Kerman bombings in Iran, and the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Russia.

Challenging Islamic State

While Moscow has been growing diplomatic ties with Kabul in hopes of reining in IS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State extremist group, Taliban authorities have their eyes fixed on Russian military hardware, including drones, to counterbalance their erstwhile ally, Pakistan.

Moscow's increasingly accommodating stance toward the Taliban has sparked widespread international criticism of the group's sweeping restrictions on women's rights and its harsh treatment of political opponents.

Noorudin, an Afghan man, sold his kidney on the black market to feed his family in 2022.

“The warming ties between Moscow and Kabul are not part of a new alliance, but a layered regional realignment,” said Omar Samad, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who also served as Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada and France under the previous administration.

Russia “gets a low-cost Afghan buffer on Central Asia’s vulnerable flank,” Samad told RFE/RL. “Such cooperation could help Moscow contain threats from Islamic State-Khorasan, Islamic State's regional affiliate and an ideological rival of the Taliban.”

Russia's concern about IS-K was highlighted in May by Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the country’s Federal Security Service (FSB), who warned that the group was recruiting citizens of Central Asian countries and migrant workers inside Russia.

In July 2025, Russia became the first country to formally recognize the Taliban government, and it remains the only one to have done so.

Unlike in the 1990s, when Russia supplied arms and provided assistance to forces fighting the Taliban, Moscow has come to accept the militant Islamists as a political reality, seeking to protect its security interests in Central Asia, particularly along Afghanistan's northern borders.

Cooperation Agreement

In May, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob signed a military-technical cooperation agreement in Moscow. The agreement's full terms have not been made public, although Yaqoob said it focused on repairing and maintaining Russian-made military equipment already in Afghanistan.

In a study published in the Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs in 2025, researchers Tatiana Belousova and Raghav Sharma argued that Moscow's warming relations with the Taliban reflected a pragmatic reassessment of Russia's security interests, particularly its concerns about the threat posed by IS-K.

But while counterterrorism is a key Russian priority, the Taliban is seeking military assistance to strengthen its defenses, particularly against Pakistani air strikes.

After returning from Moscow in late May, Yaqoob said Pakistan would soon no longer dare attack Afghan territory, although he also stressed that the agreement with Russia was not a mutual-defense pact.

Pakistan and Taliban forces have repeatedly clashed along their shared border, with tensions escalating after Pakistani air strikes on Kabul and other Afghan locations in October 2025. Pakistan had previously carried out strikes inside Afghanistan, including in March and December 2024. Further strikes and retaliatory attacks followed in 2026.

Pakistan, which supported the Afghan Taliban for decades, accuses Kabul of sheltering the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, an Islamist militant group that has carried out deadly attacks on Pakistani security forces and civilians. The Afghan Taliban denies harboring the group.

Afghans rest at a shelter in Khost, Afghanistan, after fleeing clashes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in March that displaced thousands of families.

For Moscow, however, counterterrorism remains central to its engagement with Kabul, with recent reports of more direct Russian assistance to Taliban forces.

In June, citing two sources within the Taliban's Defense Ministry, Afghanistan International claimed that Russia was helping finance, train, and equip a new 8,000-member Taliban special forces unit.

The unit, known as the Hibati Unit, would reportedly conduct operations against IS-K and help secure Afghanistan's border with Pakistan.

“Moscow publicly articulates an acute terrorist threat emanating from Afghan soil while simultaneously deepening ties with the Taliban,” geopolitical analyst Eldaniz Gusseinov wrote in The Diplomat. “That is the dual character of the Russian strategy. The threat narrative reinforces a self-assigned security role across Central Asia; the partnership with Kabul provides the instrument for that role.”

The Taliban is also said to have stepped up drone surveillance in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, where armed opposition groups remain active.

Russia has not indicated that it is supplying drone technology to the Taliban or assisting in its development. However, Afghanistan International reported on October 1, citing former senior Afghan officials, that the Taliban was seeking to acquire drones and other military equipment from Belarus, a close Russian ally, allegedly with India's financial assistance and Moscow's approval. The claims have not been independently verified.

Samad said Russia's growing cooperation with the Taliban had caused unease in Pakistan, although Iran and China shared Moscow's interest in limiting Western military influence in Afghanistan and the wider region.

For the Taliban, the benefits are both diplomatic and military, though the latter remains limited in scope.

“The Taliban gets formal recognition, support for its counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts, and inexpensive help keeping Soviet-era armor and helicopters serviceable, a hedge against Pakistani strikes, not a new arsenal as of yet,” Samad said.

Daud Khattak is a senior international correspondent covering the Near East in RFE/RL’s Central Newsroom. He was previously the managing editor of RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal. This article was first published on RFE website.