Alwaght- Just until last week, any member of the Taliban who entered Russia should have been arrested according to the Russian laws and could face up to 20 years in jail on charges of terrorism. However, since 2016 no member of the Taliban was arrested upon arrival in Russia and the Taliban officials over the past years, both before seizing the power in Kabul and after it, traveled to Russia several times. Just recently, the same law that blacklisted the Taliban in Russia as a terror group was revoked as the Russian Supreme Court last week removed the Taliban from the country's terror blacklist. The Russian Prosecutor General had previously asked the country's supreme court to remove the terrorist label from the Taliban's name following several visits by senior Taliban officials to Russia.
Highs and lows of Moscow-Taliban ties
The Russian relations with the Taliban have experienced many ups and downs:
First period: Taliban's help to Russian separatists: For the first time in 1996, the Taliban managed to form its rule in Afghanistan, and three years after takeover of power by the group, the second Chechen war began in 1999. During this war, from 1999 to 2009, the Taliban backed the Chechen fighters against Russia both financially and militarily. They established diplomatic relationship with government of President Aslan Maskhadov and recognized the declaration of independence from Russia of the Autonomous Republic of Chechen.
Second period: Mullah Omar's call for help from the Kremlin: However, when the US invasion of Afghanistan began in 2001, there were signs of the Taliban's rapprochement with Russia, including Sergei Ivanov, the then head of the Russian presidential administration, later revealing in an interview with the BBC that Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, had suggested to Russia in 2001 that Moscow and the Taliban form a joint force to fight the US occupation, although the Taliban was ousted from power soon after the American-led Western invasion and a new government was formed in Kabul. In 2003, while the Taliban were fighting against the then Kabul government as an armed rebel group, the Kremlin officially listed the Taliban as a terrorist organization.
Third period: launching contact channels: In 2015, the Kremlin started establishing contacts with the Taliban and despite the terror label, some senior officials of the group visited Moscow. Before the Taliban's comeback to power in 2021, Russia maintained its contacts with them by hosting meetings like those of "Moscow Format."
Fourth period: Russia leading in closeness to the Taliban: With the fall of the republican government in Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the Russian embassy, unlike other embassies, did not suspend its activities in the Afghan capital. Dmitry Zhirnov, the Russian ambassador to Kabul, and Zamir Kabulov, President Putin's special envoy, were among the few foreign diplomats present in Kabul at the time of the fall of the republican government who praised the Taliban's actions in securing Kabul and confronting ISIS terrorists. However, at the time, these two Russian diplomats stressed that they had no plans to recognize the Taliban. Kabulov, who attended all the Moscow Format meetings before and after the fall of the Kabul government, raised Russia's expectations for recognizing the group at the first Moscow Format meeting with Taliban officials who had just come to power. In fact, after the Taliban took control, Russia expanded its diplomatic and economic relations with the Taliban without recognizing the Taliban government. Russia was also the first country to open an economic representation office in Kabul after the Taliban took control and announced its intention to use Afghanistan as a gas transit route to Southeast Asia.
What does Russia want from the Taliban?
According to Putin's Afghanistan envoy comments, the Kremlin expects the group to form an inclusive government, fight drugs smuggling, fight terror groups, counter illegal migration, and respect human rights before any talk of recognition of the Taliban rule.
Russia's main concern: But beyond the verbal goals outlined by Kabulov, Russia is worried about the growth of terrorist groups, drugs, and illegal immigration from Afghanistan soil. With these goals in mind, Russia has already held several rounds of military exercises in cooperation with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan near the Afghan border to demonstrate some of its security concerns to the Taliban leaders.
Attracting the Taliban to Moscow: The Russians do not want the Taliban to distance from Moscow and fall into arms of Washington. Actually, Moscow sees the Taliban in power as making a precious opportunity to complete the anti-American order in the region. Therefore, although Russia has been watching the Taliban's presence in Kabul with concern due to some security and terrorist reservations, it is also paying attention to the Taliban's anti-American approach. On the other hand, the removal of the Taliban's name from Russia's list of terrorist groups indicates that the Kremlin has moved beyond past security concerns, and it seems that from this point on, the political aspect of the Taliban will be more important and decisive for Russia than some security challenges posed by the Taliban.
Upper hand in Afghanistan: A crucial point that should not be ignored is that since the American withdrawal, Russia has considered itself the leading actor in the region. When the US withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Kremlin described US foreign policy as a failure story, and now it is Moscow that, in the absence of Washington in Afghanistan, sees itself as the decisive foreign power in the country's developments. In this regard, it is natural that the Russians are moving more and more closer towards the gradual and phased recognition of Taliban rule in Kabul every day, and perhaps the removal of the Taliban from the terrorist list can be considered a step forward to this expected recognition in the near future.
Common enemy: It should also be noted that both Russia and the Taliban have a shared enemy: ISIS-Khorasan— the terrorist group responsible for deadly attacks on Afghanistan and Russia, including the attack on a concert in Moscow in March 2024 that killed 145. From this perspective, Russia sees the Taliban an ally in its fight against ISIS. In July last year, during a press briefing in Astana, Kazakhstan, Putin described the Taliban "certainly our allies in the fight against terrorism."
Legal effects of lifting Taliban ban
Removing the Taliban from the list of banned organizations, though does not mean immediate recognition of the Taliban government, will allow the Russian officials to meet the Taliban representatives without any legal problems.
This move also allows the Russian officials to formalize comprehensive agreements with Kabul government. Russian political commentator Evgeny Smirnov told Germany's DW that according to the Russian criminal laws, cooperation with organizations listed as terrorist bears punishment like imprisonment, and the Russian officials could not sign any official agreements with the Taliban authorities before revocation of the terror label. In 2024, contracts for the supply of petroleum products, wheat and flour were established between Moscow and Taliban officials, but agreements have not yet been officially signed. Smirnov also believes that some of the agreements signed between Russia and Afghanistan so far have been carried out through commercial structures in which no Taliban representative was directly involved. However, with the removal of the Taliban from Russia's terrorist list, there will be no legal and judicial consequences for the Russian officials for partnership with the Kabul rulers.
Economic effects of the ruling
We can better figure out the significance of lifting the ban on the Taliban when we take a look at their business ties. Russian liquid gas exports to Afghanistan in 2025 touched 71,000 tons with a 52- percent increase and the businesspeople expect a further increase. Also, Afghanistan was the biggest purchaser of flour from Russia in 2024. Russia Trade Center in Kabul estimates that their bilateral trade has now reached $1 billion. Eliminating legal and regulatory obstacles to trade and agreements with the Taliban is one of the main and essential prerequisites for their economic relations boost. From this perspective, the Russian court's ruling means removing some of the barriers to Russian trade and business ties with Afghanistan.
