As Russia deepens cooperation with Afghanistan’s rulers, it faces a growing tension between regional influence, connectivity ambitions and its own security concerns.
Few countries have warned more about the dangers emanating from Taliban-ruled Afghanistan than Russia. However, Moscow is now deepening military cooperation with the Taliban government that controls the territory in which many of these threats lie.
of military-technical cooperation agreement signed in Moscow between Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu and Taliban Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob marked another milestone in the rapidly transforming relationship between the two sides.
Although the content of the agreement was not publicly disclosed, its symbolism is clear. It follows Russia’s decision to remove the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist organizations and subsequent recognition of the Taliban government in 2025.
Taken together, these steps show that Moscow is no longer engaging the Taliban as a political reality. On the contrary, it is gradually incorporating Afghanistan into a broader framework of Russian regional strategy.
The question for Moscow is whether its strategy can deliver both influence and stability.
Touching engagement
Russia’s engagement with the Taliban is driven by considerations that extend far beyond counterterrorism.
The withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan created a geopolitical vacuum that regional powers have competed to fill. ABOUT Moscow, Afghanistan occupies an important strategic position linking Central Asia, South Asia and the wider Middle East. Thus, influence in Kabul ensures influence in multiple theaters at the same time.
Economic considerations are equally important. Bilateral trade exceeded $530 million in 2025 and continued to expand during the first months of 2026, while discussions about infrastructure, energy cooperation, transport connectivity and mineral development have accelerated.
Russian policymakers increasingly see Afghanistan not as a peripheral security problem, but as a potential component of their broader Eurasian integration strategy.
It is particularly important Trans-Afghan Corridorwhich can connect Central Asia with Pakistan ports through Afghan territory. Russian and regional planners see the project as a potential extension of wider Eurasian shipping networks, with projected cargo volumes eventually reaching several million tons a year.
Such routes complement Moscow’s efforts to diversify trade networks and reduce dependence on Western-controlled economic corridors. In an era of sanctions and geopolitical fragmentation, alternative transport routes have gained increasing strategic value.
Afghanistan is quite untapped RESERVE of copper, lithium and other critical minerals also increase its geopolitical importance. While Russia possesses substantial mineral resources on its own, securing leverage over future extraction projects offers economic opportunities and strategic advantages in an increasingly competitive global environment.
Maintaining influence in Afghanistan is also important because Moscow does not want a post-American Afghanistan to become exclusively dependent on Chinese economic power. As Beijing’s investments, mining interests and connectivity initiatives continue to expand in Afghanistan, Russia seeks to ensure that it remains an indispensable political and security actor in the country’s future.
Moscow’s objective is not necessarily to compete with Beijing, but to ensure that it remains an important player. More broadly, maintaining relevance in Afghanistan is a way for Russia to ensure that influence in the heart of Eurasia is not monopolized by any single outside actor, including China.
Therefore, Russia’s policy in Afghanistan is not only about Afghanistan. It is about Moscow’s broader ambition to remain a decisive actor in the emerging Eurasian order.
The security paradox
However, the deeper Russia becomes involved in Afghanistan, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile engagement with its own security assessments.
Just days before the signing of the military agreement, senior Russian officials publicly warned of a worsening terrorist landscape in Afghanistan. Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov warned that Islamic State-Khorasan was actively recruiting across Central Asia and among immigrant communities linked to Russia.
Shoigu said separately that between 18,000 and 23,000 militants affiliated with more than 20 extremist organizations remain active inside Afghanistan.
These quantitative warnings are consistent with repeated assessments by United Nations and regional security organizations documenting the continued presence of ISIS-K, al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and other militant groups operating from Afghan territory.
Moscow apparently believes that engagement offers the most practical means of managing and mitigating these threats. In the Kremlin’s view, the Taliban remain the only force capable of preventing a complete security vacuum and limiting the expansion of ISIS-K.
Indeed, international isolation has produced few positive results, while the decline of the Taliban’s authority could generate even greater instability across Central Asia.
However, Russia’s strategy is based on an uncomfortable assumption: that the Taliban can simultaneously serve as partners in the fight against extremism while governing a territory that continues to host a vast ecosystem of militant organizations.
While the Taliban have demonstrated resolve in confronting ISIS-K, they have been far less successful and seemingly committed to addressing the broader militant networks that continue to trouble many neighboring states, including China.
engagement of Moscow it also gives the Taliban greater international legitimacy, despite ongoing concerns about militant activity in Afghanistan. The Kremlin appears to believe that engagement provides leverage, but critics argue that recognition can progress faster than meaningful security improvements.
For Moscow, this is a central strategic bet.
Pakistan Test
The most immediate test of Russia’s strategy in Afghanistan may ultimately come not from Kabul, but from Islamabad.
During the last decade, Moscow has steadily expanded relations with Pakistan through energy cooperation, defense contacts and regional diplomacy. At the same time, many of Russia’s long-term connectivity ambitions depend on stable transport routes linking Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s security concerns present perhaps the greatest external challenge to Russia’s Afghan strategy. Moscow increasingly views Pakistan as an important partner in regional connectivity and energy cooperation, yet many of these ambitions depend on stability in the very border regions where Islamabad continues to accuse Afghanistan-based militant groups of operating.
This creates a delicate balancing challenge for Moscow. On the one hand, Russia seeks deeper engagement with the Taliban to advance connectivity, trade and regional influence. On the other hand, its broader Eurasian ambitions require constructive relations with Pakistan, whose security concerns in Afghanistan are far from resolved.
The controversy is unlikely to disappear anytime soon. If stability improves, Russia could emerge as one of the main beneficiaries of a new network of transport and economic corridors linking Central and South Asia. If uncertainty persists, Moscow may find itself increasingly entangled in the very security challenges it hopes engagement will mitigate.
Therefore, the military cooperation agreement represents much more than a bilateral understanding between Russia and Afghanistan. It reflects Moscow’s broader effort to shape the geopolitical landscape of post-American Eurasia.
Whether this effort will succeed will depend on an important unanswered question. Can the Taliban evolve into a reliable partner for regional stability while continuing to govern a territory that remains a focal point for transnational militant activity?
In betting on engagement, Moscow is betting that the Taliban can become a stabilizing force before Afghanistan’s militant landscape overwhelms the state’s capacity to control it. If this assumption turns out to be correct, Russia could emerge as one of the main architects of a new framework of Eurasian connectivity stretching from Central Asia to South Asia.
If it turns out to be wrong, Moscow may find that the Afghanistan engagement brings more liabilities than opportunities. The outcome will shape not only Russia’s position in post-American Afghanistan, but also the future balance of power across Eurasia.
Saima Afzal is a scholar specializing in South Asian security, counter-terrorism and wider geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Indo-Pacific. She is currently a research scholar at the Justus Liebig University, Germany.
