Roving Periscope: With Taliban 2.0, Russia back on the Afghan chessboard

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: For nearly four centuries, Russia scouted for warm-water seaports in Asia as its other ports remained frozen for half the year, making navigation and trade impossible. The only way to acquire all-weather ports in the Arabian Sea passed through Afghanistan and Baluchistan.

This quest pushed Moscow into Kabul in December 1979. Russia would have, perhaps, acquired ports like Gwadar but the intrepid Afghan warlords wore it down and beat it back in 10 years. The unprecedented setback sparked a series of disasters leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

The Soviet Union’s 1979 plans for a quick military campaign bogged down in fierce Islamist resistance by the US-backed Afghan guerrillas, the Mujahedeen (Holy Warriors). Moscow lost over 15,000 troops, while civilian casualties in Afghanistan until 1991 numbered between 500,000 and 2 million.

Mikhail Gorbachev, 90, the Soviet leader who pulled out the Red Army in 1989, and presided over the collapse of the USSR, said this week that the US campaign in Afghanistan was “doomed from the start.”

But Russia did not forget its medieval foreign policy objectives. During the Taliban regime (1996-2001), it remained low-profile. After the US-led attack of 2001 ousting the Taliban, however, Moscow crawled back. Since 2015, it has rebuilt bridges with the Taliban, inviting them to several bilateral and multilateral meetings. And now it is among the few countries to retain their embassies in Kabul.

Interestingly, Russia has, since 2003, continued to list the Taliban as a “terrorist outfit” and, despite its law that makes any contacts with it punishable, Moscow has mollycoddled the banned Islamist outfit in a bid to remain in the fray so as to retain a foothold in Afghanistan to resume its southward movement.

After the Taliban takeover on August 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted that Moscow is in no hurry to recognize the Taliba 2.0 regime, adding that the militia has given “encouraging signals of their readiness to let other political forces join the government and allow girls into schools.” Russia’s exchanges with the Taliban are “essential for global efforts to stabilize Afghanistan”, he said.

Russian Ambassador to Kabul Dmitry Zhirnov, who quickly met the Taliban leaders this week, praised them, after “positive and constructive” exchanges, as reasonable guys, adding the militants guaranteed the embassy’s security.

Since 2015, Moscow has re-emerged as an influential power broker in international talks on Afghanistan and cultivated ties with the Taliban, Kremlin envoy on Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov said recently.

A month before Taliban militants seized Kabul, their delegation visited Moscow to assure that they would not threaten the interests of Russia and its ex-Soviet allies in Central Asia—Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazhakstan. Taliban spokesman Mohammad Sohail Shaheen said that “we won’t allow anyone to use the Afghan territory to attack Russia or neighboring countries, as “we have very good relations” with Moscow.

Moscow has also hailed the Taliban’s pledge to combat drug trafficking and stem the flow of drugs from Afghanistan via Central Asia, media reported, adding, for now, Russia considers the outfit as “moderate and responsible”.

But Moscow is also cautious. Despite the Taliban’s assurances, it held a series of joint war games with its allies in Central Asia, with the latest drills beginning in Tajikistan this week.

Kabulov said that Russia would only take the Taliban off its list of terrorist organizations after the UN Security Council decides to remove it from its terror list. Despite strains, Moscow and Washington have continued to coordinate their diplomatic moves on Afghanistan.

Franz Klintsevich, a Soviet war veteran in Afghanistan and the first deputy head of the defense and security committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament, said the US has left behind huge arsenals of weapons that fell into the Taliban’s hands.

“Who would make such gifts to terrorists after fighting them for 20 years?” he asked.

That is where some are reading between the lines!