Delisting the Taliban: What’s Driving Moscow’s New Afghanistan Policy?

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On 17 April 2025, the Russian Supreme Court suspended the terrorist status of the Taliban, ending over two decades of the grouping being outlawed on Russian territory. This was followed by the decision to upgrade Afghanistan’s diplomatic mission in Moscow to the ambassador level, announced by the presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, during his Kabul visit on 23 April 2025. For Moscow, these are largely symbolic decisions, while for the Taliban, it marks another step towards emerging from international isolation. As Russia’s moves appear to be a political concession to the Taliban, it is not entirely clear what its main drivers are and what Moscow expects from Kabul in return.

Various stakeholders have leveraged it to demand greater inclusiveness in the Taliban government and improve its human rights record.

The lack of international legitimacy is a well-known weakness of the Taliban dispensation. Various stakeholders have leveraged it to demand greater inclusiveness in the Taliban government and improve its human rights record. However, the routinisation of the Taliban’s power in Kabul led various actors to either re-establish their diplomatic presence in the Afghan capital or to engage in semi-official contacts with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). As a result, neighbouring states, such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, removed the Taliban from their lists of terrorist groups. Moscow has also signalled the same intention since May 2023, yet has delayed the final decision.

The process has gained momentum in May 2024 after the Russian foreign and justice ministries proposed to President Vladimir Putin that the grouping be removed from Russia’s blacklist. When Putin described the Taliban as Russia’s ‘allies in countering terrorism’ at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana in July 2024, it became clear that the Taliban’s delisting was only a matter of bureaucratic formality. During his Kabul visit on 25 November 2024, the Russian Federation Security Council Secretary, Sergei Shoigu confirmed that Russia would remove the Taliban from its list of designated terrorist organisations. On the same day, a group of Russian senators submitted a bill to the State Duma providing for the removal of terrorist organisations from the blacklist—“if there is factual evidence that [they] have ceased to propagate, justify and support terrorist activities”. The Bill was passed by the Russian Parliament and signed into law by President Putin in late December 2024, paving the way for the Supreme Court order.

By lifting the ban on the Taliban, Moscow seeks to expand its bilateral relations. The visit of a large Russian delegation to Kabul, led by Shoigu, the first such high-level engagement since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, clearly showed Moscow’s seriousness in exploring avenues of cooperation with the IEA. Consultations with top officials from various parts of the interim government, from political and economic blocs to defence and internal affairs ministries, hinted at Moscow’s engagement with all Taliban factions.

The Russian public opinion is rather divided on this issue, with some experts questioning the effectiveness of the Taliban’s counter-terrorism measures and pointing to the ISKP’s involvement in the planning and execution of the March 2024 terrorist attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall.

There are several motivations for Russia to step up its engagement with the Taliban. Firstly, Moscow’s Afghan policy is largely driven by a security agenda. In its official discourse, Russia ‘appreciates the Taliban’s military and law enforcement operations’ against the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). The Russian public opinion is rather divided on this issue, with some experts questioning the effectiveness of the Taliban’s counter-terrorism measures and pointing to the ISKP’s involvement in the planning and execution of the March 2024 terrorist attack in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall. Moscow’s diplomatic appraisal of the Taliban’s efforts may indicate an underlying attempt to forge closer ties with their security establishment to gain more leverage in counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan.

Secondly, trade and economic cooperation have greater prominence in Moscow’s engagements with Kabul. Although Russia is not the IEA’s most important trading partner, the growth of bilateral trade has been rapid, from US$170 million in 2022 to US$1 billion in 2024. Afghanistan has emerged as an important destination for the Russian exports of certain commodities. Afghanistan was the top buyer of Russian flour in 2024, purchasing products worth US$80 million, twice as much as the previous year. Afghanistan also imported over 275,000 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from Russia in 2024–2025, worth US$132 million. There is ample scope for further supplies of this commodity to Afghanistan, where the annual demand is estimated to be around 700,000 tonnes per year. The transit of LPG to South and Southeast Asia could be even more significant, especially as Moscow seeks to diversify its export geography following the European Union’s ban on imports of Russian LPG in December 2024. Russian and Taliban representatives are expected to sign a contract transitioning 50 million cubic metres (about 26.3 million tonnes) of LPG at the KazanForum in May 2025. However, the throughput capacity of the route through Afghanistan and security issues may ultimately limit the agreement’s implementation.

Russian and Taliban representatives are expected to sign a contract transitioning 50 million cubic metres (about 26.3 million tonnes) of LPG at the KazanForum in May 2025.

The IEA has become a source for Russian imports of spices, carbonated, and energy drinks—primarily Coke after the Coca-Cola company left the Russian market in 2022, medicinal herbs such as lavender, thyme and liquorice, as well as chrome ores, minerals, rubies, and emeralds. According to some      sources     , the two sides are looking to expand the list of products for trade, bringing the total turnover to more than US$3 billion. However, Moscow and Kabul will have to resolve several issues relating to cargo insurance, payment settlements, an underdeveloped border, and transport infrastructure to achieve this.

Russia has recently begun to prioritise the development of transport corridors across Afghan territory. Moscow supports two new routes: the trans-Afghan railroad Torghundi–Herat–Kandahar–Spin Boldak, which is being promoted by Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and is seen by Russia as an extension of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and the Belarus–Russia–Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan multimodal corridor. Both projects, if implemented, would provide Moscow with access to the Indian Ocean through the Pakistani port of Karachi and reduce its dependence on Iranian transport infrastructure.

Moscow could have expanded economic ties with the Taliban’s IEA without officially removing the group from the terrorist list. As the experience of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan shows, the delisting of the Taliban does not automatically translate into political and economic transformation. This may indicate that Moscow is not handing the Taliban a trump card, but rather, as some Russian experts argue, is signalling to external actors, especially the United States (US), that it has leverage in Afghanistan. According to this logic, Russia may be bracing itself for the upcoming changes in the US strategy towards South Asia and is eager to pitch Afghanistan as a potential area of coordination with Washington.

One important caveat is that the Bill implies a ‘temporary’ removal from Russia’s blacklist, providing the Russian authorities a mechanism to reverse their own decision in case the Taliban’s policies are unfavourable to Moscow.

Whatever the rationale behind delisting the Taliban and upgrading diplomatic ties, Russia still maintains a degree of ambiguity in its Afghanistan policy. One important caveat is that the Bill implies a ‘temporary’ removal from Russia’s blacklist, providing the Russian authorities a mechanism to reverse their own decision in case the Taliban’s policies are unfavourable to Moscow. Additionally, the changes to the Taliban’s designation do not amount to Moscow’s official recognition of their regime.

Despite the legalisation of political and diplomatic communication with the Taliban, Russia will continue to demonstrate its learned ambiguity towards its dispensation to build closer ties with Kabul while seeking links with external and internal actors that can provide leeway for consolidating Moscow’s positions in Afghanistan.

Aleksei Zakharov is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.

• International Affairs
• Russia and Eurasia
• USA and Canada
• Afghanistan
• russia afghanistan relations
• russia taliban relations
• Russia's Afghan Policy
• Russian Delegation in Afghanistan
• Russian Exports to Afghanistan
• russian lng exports to afghanistan

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