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On July 3, Russia became the first country in the world to officially recognize the Taliban’s legitimate governing authority in Afghanistan. Russian ambassador to Kabul, Dmitry Zhirnov, called the move a “historic step.” It’s hard not to recall the scene from Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, when Berlioz asks Woland, “Are you a historian?”
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“I am a historian,” the Prince of Darkness replies solemnly. Then he adds, “This evening at the Patriarch’s Ponds, there will be an interesting story!”
Indeed, the story behind Moscow’s decision to recognize the Islamist Taliban, which overthrew the pro-U.S. Afghan regime in October 2001, has been no less dramatic.
Graveyard of empires
For centuries, Afghanistan has been a thorn in the side of great powers — earning it the
nickname “the graveyard of empires.” Among relatively recent events, one can recall the
19th-century Great Game between the British and Russian empires, the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979–1989, and the U.S.-led war from 2001 to 2021. What stands out in all these cases is how foreign powers, no matter how mighty, inevitably found themselves broken against the uniquely resilient Afghan terrain — political, cultural and literal.
In 2020, as the U.S. prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, it signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban. Under the terms, the West would pull its troops out, and the Taliban were expected to begin peace talks with the then-government led by Ashraf Ghani. But those talks never happened. In 2021, Ghani fled to the UAE, and the Taliban swiftly took control of the country as U.S. forces departed — with astonishing ease.
Over the next four years, no country officially recognized the Taliban regime. The group
itself remained designated a terrorist organization in most of the world. Yet it was clear that Afghanistan — governed by an Islamist ideocracy, flooded with weapons, and home to numerous terrorist training camps — couldn’t simply be erased from the geopolitical map. The United States, a so-called global policeman, understood that. So did Afghanistan’s regional neighbors.
Delisting the Taliban is one thing — recognizing them as the legitimate rulers of
Afghanistan is quite another.
Back in 2016, Russia launched the so-called “Moscow Format” (MF) — a series of regional consultations on the Afghan issue. The format brought in regional powers, including India, China, Iran, Pakistan, the Central Asian republics, the former Afghan government, and representatives of the Taliban. At the first meeting in 2017, the Taliban — still just a powerful terrorist group — held a weak hand. But by the latest Moscow Format talks in October 2024, the Taliban, now rulers of Afghanistan, had become the central player at the table.
What the international community has consistently demanded from the Taliban is respect for human rights — especially women’s rights — and the creation of an inclusive government that represents the diverse ethnic and political groups within the country. Neither of these conditions has been met. And yet, the wheels are finally turning.
Notably, it was a Central Asian republic that took the first formal step toward legitimizing the Taliban. In the summer of 2024, Kazakhstan became the first country in the world to remove the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations. Kyrgyzstan followed suit in the fall. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan began actively building trade and economic ties with Kabul. But delisting the Taliban is one thing — recognizing them as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan is quite another. So far, only the Russian Federation has dared to take that final step.
Firewall against terrorists
The obvious question arises: Why was it Russia that granted the Taliban unconditional
absolution?
According to the Kremlin’s official line, the Taliban were recognized in the name of regional stability and security. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, was even more explicit: He called the Taliban “our objective allies whom we must support — and arm, in every sense of the word — so they can successfully eliminate even the smallest hotbeds of international terrorism.”
So, if we take Kabulov at his word, the idea is to empower Afghanistan to serve as a firewall against terrorist groups. There may be some basis for this: The Taliban have long been fighting both al-Qaeda and ISIS-Khorasan. But does that mean they are ready to bring order throughout the world?
As Fergana has previously reported, the United States has been making conciliatory steps toward the Taliban leaders. Perhaps drawing from strategies dating back to Barack Obama’s administration, U.S. President Donald Trump intended to make the Taliban a proxy — a kind of U.S.-aligned force within radical Islam, capable of counterbalancing hostile Islamic states and extremist groups.
In March of this year, the U.S. initiated talks on restoring formal diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, shortly after removing the country from its list of national security threats. Almost immediately following this move, Russia’s Prosecutor General petitioned the Supreme Court to suspend the ban on Taliban activity. First, Russia delisted the Taliban as a terrorist organization and then formally recognized the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as a legitimate state.
The “good” terrorists vs. the “bad”
But does one swallow make a summer? Can Russia’s recognition alone legitimize the
Taliban on the global stage?
Political analyst Andrei Serenko believes that the Taliban’s legitimacy crisis is not just
international — it’s domestic, too. All previous Afghan regimes, including those that worked closely with the Soviet Union, had at least some claim to legitimacy. They were not built solely on force; they came to power through elections. The Taliban, by contrast, seized power by force. According to Serenko, their current legitimacy is akin to that of hijackers — they took control of a state the same way one might hijack a plane.
Their power, he says, is built on two pillars: brute force and a deal struck with the Americans in Doha in February 2020. In other words, the Taliban are a terrorist group that illegally took control of a country.
Which brings us back to the question: if that’s truly the case, why does Russia want to work with the terrorists? And do Zamir Kabulov’s comments about arming the Taliban imply more than just an idea of backing the “good” terrorists (i.e., those loyal to Moscow) against the “bad” ones like ISIS-Khorasan?
After all, who poses a greater threat to Moscow: scattered terrorist groups incapable of truly shaking the foundations of the current regime, or the so-called collective West, which has sided with Ukraine and is tormenting the Kremlin with endless sanctions? The answer is obvious.
In that case, could Russia’s rapprochement with the Taliban be less a message to terrorist groups and more a signal to Western nations? It’s one thing to pit one group of bearded fighters against another — to set the Taliban against ISIS*, for example. But it’s quite another to imply that Moscow now has a heavily armed, radical Islamic state on its side — one with long-standing experience in both warfare and acts of terror. What if the Kremlin not only recognizes the Taliban politically but forms a military alliance with them?
The unspoken message to the West becomes clear: “Think carefully, gentlemen. Do you really need another headache? As if your existing problems weren’t enough.”
Russia’s recognition of the Islamic Emirate was even welcomed by China.
That said, in practice, no Afghan fighters are going to march off to Europe or anywhere else to fight. Yes, it’s true that official recognition from a major power like Russia matters greatly to the Taliban — but that doesn’t mean they’re about to become anyone’s puppet or start following someone else’s geopolitical playbook. Diplomatic relations? Certainly. Economic ties? With pleasure. But bowing to anyone’s demands? Never — that’s not why the Taliban came to power.
The question is: Does everyone understand this? In recent years, many of the Kremlin’s
theatrical foreign policy gestures have been aimed not outward, but inward — at its
domestic audience. When the tiny island nation of Nauru recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russians joked: “Now we fear nothing — Nauru is with us!” But the Taliban are not Nauru. Their alliance carries weight — and the fact that they now “stand with us” can have a powerful effect on the average Russian citizen.
One can say endlessly that the Taliban are localized, national actors solely concerned with Afghanistan, and they won’t move beyond its borders. But such statements can always be met with a counterpoint: That’s how it’s been before, but will it always be? And if the Taliban do eventually develop interests outside their country, could those expansionist ambitions be harnessed — or exploited? That’s a far more complicated question than it first appears.
Will they stay quiet?
Interestingly, Russia’s recognition of the Islamic Emirate was even welcomed by China —
despite the fact that Russian growing influence in the region might seem to conflict with
Beijing’s own strategic interests. Yet it appears that China sees more benefit than harm in legitimizing the Taliban. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated that China will continue its friendly policy toward the Afghan people and support cooperation between the two countries across various sectors. A completely different view is held by forces opposed to the Taliban.
Former Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta called Russia’s recognition of the Taliban regime “deeply regrettable.” “Russia is the first country to recognize the Taliban’s repressive regime,” Spanta said. “This is just the beginning. In the absence of broad resistance, others may follow Russia.”
Global terrorism is not under the Taliban’s command.
The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, for its part, warned that Russia’s decision effectively legitimizes terrorist organizations and removes barriers to dismantling constitutional order across the region.
“A direct consequence of the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan has been the empowerment and expansion of extremist groups such as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Tajik Jamaat Ansarullah, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, ISIS-Khorasan, al-Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, and others — many of which have already extended their terrorist activities onto Russian soil.”
The picture that emerges is quite interesting. If the Taliban’s critics are to be believed, then Russia is — whether knowingly or not — giving its blessing to a status quo in which Afghanistan has become a breeding ground for terrorist bases, including those openly hostile to the Russian Federation.
Perhaps some in Moscow believe that by forging close ties with the Afghan leadership, it will be able to “shush” and rein “bad terrorists.” And to an extent, it might — but certainly not all. Global terrorism is not under the Taliban’s command.
Still, as previously mentioned, Russia’s goals in this story likely go far beyond merely fighting terrorism.
