Russia signs military partnership with the Taliban

Russia and Afghanistan signed a military cooperation agreement on Wednesday, just one year after the Kremlin removed the Taliban from a list of banned terrorist groups.

The new agreement underscores the deepening ties between the Kremlin and the Taliban, and while the exact details remain murky, Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoub said the agreement marked an expansion of the bilateral relations between the two countries.

“Interaction with Russia is important for us,” Yaqoub said following a meeting with Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu at the International Security Forum in Moscow. “Afghanistan and Russia have long-standing and historic relations, and we want to move forward in this direction.”

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and spent the next decade fighting a bloody war against the mujahideen, Islamic guerrilla fighters resisting the occupation, many of whom would later found the Taliban.

In the years after Soviet troops withdrew, relations between Moscow and Kabul remained tense. However, following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Russia was accused of supplying arms to the Taliban as the group moved to consolidate its control over the country.

On Wednesday, Shoigu called for Western countries to “unfreeze” sanctions on the Taliban and “fully acknowledge their full responsibility for their 20-year presence in Afghanistan.”

In April 2025, Russia removed the Taliban from its list of banned terrorist groups, a designation that had been in place since 2003. Then, in July of the same year, it became the first and only country to formally recognize the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the European Commission confirmed that it had invited Taliban officials to Brussels, although a spokesperson said that the invitation “does not by any means constitute a recognition.”