The Russian Supreme Court removed the Taliban junta in Afghanistan from its terrorism watch list on Thursday, paving the way for President Vladimir Putin to cooperate more extensively with the Islamist regime, or perhaps become the first world leader to formally recognize the rulers of Kabul as legitimate.
Russia outlawed the Taliban as a terrorist organization in 2003, in part because the Taliban supported Chechen insurgents against Moscow. This was not a transgression the Russians found easy to forget. A top Russian official once reportedly said that when Taliban boss Mullah Omar offered to join forces with Moscow against “American aggression” in 2001, the Kremlin’s response was: “F**k off.”
Times changed and the tides of fortune shifted. In 2015, the Russians began speaking to the Taliban again. After President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Russians became very interested in doing business with the Taliban, which wants to buy oil from Russia and pay with valuable minerals.
The Russian embassy in Kabul stayed open while Biden was bumbling his way out of Afghanistan, although Russia has not formally recognized the Taliban government or established diplomatic relations with it.
In May 2024, Russian envoy Zamir Kabulov said only “a few hurdles” remained to removing the Taliban from Russia’s list of banned terrorist organizations. The Russians began urging Western nations to ignore the Taliban’s barbaric human rights record, lift their sanctions, and “recognize their responsibility for the post-conflict reconstruction of Afghanistan.”
Putin initiated the process of lifting the Taliban’s terrorist designation last year, saluting the Taliban as a partner against terrorism. He was referring to the Taliban’s enmity for the Islamic State, which allegedly killed 145 people at a concert hall near Moscow in a March 2024 attack.
The Russian Supreme Court handed down a ruling on Thursday that effectively completed the process of delisting the Taliban as terrorists. The court did not order Putin’s government to formally recognize the legitimacy of the Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” but that option is now on the table if Putin chooses to exercise it.
Deutsche Welle (DW) on Thursday suggested Putin might have wanted to complete the process of certifying the Taliban as terrorism-free because he wants the same option for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian Islamist rebel group that deposed Russian-supported Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in December.
The Russians gave Assad shelter after he fled Damascus, but they apparently have no illusions about reinstalling him as ruler of Syria, so they might wish to develop a relationship with the junta that replaced him.
Under Russian law, doing business with a designated terrorist group is illegal, so removing the Taliban from the terror list makes it possible for Russian companies to make deals in Afghanistan. Similar reasoning could motivate Putin to delist HTS, which was designated as a terrorist organization by Russia in 2020, at a time when the Kremlin was working to keep Assad in power.
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