Russia's formal recognition a shot in the arm for the Taliban

AllAfrica

08-07-2025

On July 3, Moscow formally recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Recognition has opened a new chapter in the Taliban's outreach to the outside world.
Russia and the former Soviet Union have had a complicated history, to say the least, with Afghanistan, the Mujahideen forces and the Taliban. From having lost the last Cold War era proxy war in Afghanistan, during 1979-89 and then, in the early 21st century, having shown initial support for the US counter-terror war in Afghanistan, Russia has gone full circle in becoming the first major power – indeed, the first country – to recognize the Taliban government in its second iteration.
Is this a win-win for Russia and the Taliban, particularly for the latter's relentless drive to gain global recognition? What could be the implications for the Taliban's re-engagement with the world, after a hiatus of more than two decades?
Russia is a permanent veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Therefore, its recognition of the Taliban infuses a very tangible de-facto legitimacy to the erstwhile insurgency group deemed by much of the rest of the world a terrorist organization.
During the Taliban's first rule in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, its self-declared 'Islamic Emirate' was officially recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
After having forced the world's most powerful military and its allies, to leave Afghanistan lock, stock and barrel, the Taliban in its second innings has had a very different beginning. It has managed to leverage a shifting regional and global security environment to its advantage, and reduced its international isolation to a large extent.
But, what prompted Russia to take this rather bold step, before any other country?
Extending a diplomatic hand of friendship to a Taliban thirsty for recognition,could provide some strategic traction to a Russia that is struggling with a list of huge challenges that starts with the on-going Ukraine war, West-led sanctions and the weakening of its economy.
For Moscow, Afghanistan is a good arrow to have in its strategic quiver. Moreover, this is a move in which Russia has been well invested in, even in the midst of the US war on terrorism.
As the military fortunes of the US in Afghanistan started to slide and the signs that the Taliban would return became more ominous, Russia could be seen engaging with the group through back-door channel – from 2007 for addressing concerns related to drug trafficking and especially post-2015 when the growing potency of ISIS-K emerged as a common threat to Moscow and the Taliban.
Moreover, Russia has also been involved in facilitating national reconciliation and settlement in Afghanistan. It has been making its presence felt in the region, through multilateral platforms such as the Moscow Format of Consultations, the regional Quartet (Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan), the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Moscow's distinct perception of regional geopolitics and security also shapes its engagement with the Taliban, whose writ over Afghanistan cannot be ignored anymore. A working relationship with the Taliban is considered germane to how Moscow views security on its southern borders as well as in Central Asia.
Those five post-Soviet countries, according to Moscow, still consider Russia to be their regional security guarantor. The stability of Afghanistan is deemed crucial in preventing uncontrollable refugee flows to the Central Asian countries and Russia;
stopping terrorists and other criminals crossing those borders;
stopping the spread of Islamic radicalization in Central Asia and Russia; and
stopping the flow of drugs.
Moreover, Russia will want to leverage the post-American vacuum in Afghanistan, to take the first-mover advantage in this case, to re-establish its strategic footprint – something it lost post 1989.
From pure geostrategic considerations and Russia's sphere of influence in Central Asia, any lingering presence of the United States in Afghanistan will be an eyesore for Moscow. However, Moscow did attempt to draw in the US, in its dialogue with the Taliban that included India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian countries.
Although no state before Russia had formally recognized the Taliban administration since its return to power on August 15, 2021, the group has experienced significantly less international isolation this time than it did during its earlier rule. On February 5, 2025, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the administration was engaging with 40 countries on diplomatic affairs.
Soon after the Taliban's takeover of Kabul for the second time, many countries evacuated their embassies or temporarily closed them down due to the deteriorating security situation in the country. However, some regional countries such as Iran, China, Pakistan, most of the Central Asian Republics, Qatar, UAE, Turkiye and Russia maintained diplomatic presences in Kabul, keeping their missions operational.
Without the final step of formal recognition, as of 2025 over a dozen countries had appointed ambassadors to Kabul, including China, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Uzbekistan. In addition, several regional states, such as India, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, maintained diplomatic engagement at the level of chargés d'affaires (CDAs).
The United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and South Korea conduct their diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan through their missions based in Doha, Qatar. Other countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Nepal and Sri Lanka, sustain such engagement via their embassies in Islamabad, Pakistan.
In December 2023, China became the first country to formally accept a Taliban-appointed ambassador, while the Islamic Emirate's first military attaché was received in Moscow in March 2024.
In addition to diplomatic exchanges, the Taliban administration hosted several high-level visits, most notably, in 2024, that of the Uzbek Prime Minister, the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Kabul since the group's return to power.
From 2021 onward, Taliban officials have also held multiple meetings with representatives from various international/regional bodies, including the United Nations (UN), the European Union's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, the Economic Cooperation Organization and member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
In June 2024, a Taliban delegation participated for the first time in the high-level UN-led meeting of special envoys to Afghanistan in Doha. That was the third such meeting. The Taliban made its attendance conditional on the exclusion of Afghan civil society representatives, a demand that the UN ultimately accepted.
These developments reflect the Taliban's expanding diplomatic outreach and their increasing, albeit limited, acceptance on regional and international platforms.
In a significant development, on December 29, 2023, Kazakhstan formally removed the Taliban from its list of proscribed terrorist organizations. Subsequently, in September 2024, the government of Kyrgyzstan followed suit by lifting the designation of the 'Taliban Movement' as a banned entity. Most recently, on April 17, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation annulled the Taliban's classification as a terrorist organization.
As of now, Russia's formal recognition of the Taliban regime constitutes a shot in the arm for the Islamic Emirate's diplomatic drive, particularly given Moscow's historical support for the Northern Alliance – an opposition force that confronted the Taliban during its first rule in the 1990s.
At the same time, by accepting Taliban-appointed ambassadors and envoys to represent Afghanistan, countries such as China, Pakistan, the UAE and Uzbekistan have also implicitly signalled accordance of a degree of political legitimacy and recognition of the Taliban's second regime.
In the midst of this churn in Taliban's outreach to the world the United States, after more than twenty years of shaping the politics, economics and security landscape of Afghanistan, is, relatively speaking, missing in action as the Trump administration battles strategic challenges in the trans-Pacific and trans-Aatlantic theaters. In short, Afghanistan does not loom large, at least for now, in the White House's radar screen.
Reading the tea leaves on Russia's and other major stakeholders' moves, the overriding message that countries in the region and beyond infer is that the forces of geopolitics often trump humanitarian principles and considerations – and that to be left behind the curve is, unfortunately, a recipe for bad strategy.
Indrani Talukdar is a fellow, Anchita Borthakur is a research consultant and Monish Tourangbam is a senior research consultant at the Chintan Research Foundation (CRF), New Delhi