Russia has accepted the credentials of a new Afghan ambassador, marking a significant step in its ongoing efforts to build friendly ties with the Taliban authorities. The move makes Russia the first country in the world to officially recognise the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
“We believe that the act of official recognition of the government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will give impetus to the development of productive bilateral cooperation between our countries in various fields,” said the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement on Thursday.
“This brave decision will be an example for others,” Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said in a video of a meeting on Thursday with Dmitry Zhirnov, the Russian ambassador to Kabul, posted on X.
“Now that the process of recognition has started, Russia was ahead of everyone.”
Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, when US forces supporting the country’s internationally recognised government pulled out.
The Afghan government is not officially recognised by any world body, and the United Nations refers to the administration as the “Taliban de facto authorities.”
Moscow, which called the US withdrawal a “failure”, has taken steps to normalise relations with the Taliban authorities since then.
A Taliban delegation attended Russia’s flagship economic forum in Saint Petersburg in 2022 and 2024, and the group’s top diplomat met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow last October.
In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Taliban “allies in the fight against terrorism” – notably against Islamic State Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), a group which claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in both Afghanistan and Russia.
Russia put the Taliban on its “terrorist” blacklist in 2003 over its support for separatists in the North Caucasus. In April last year, Russia’s Supreme Court lifted the “terrorist” designation for Taliban.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that month that “the new authorities in Kabul are a reality”, urging Moscow to adopt a “pragmatic, not ideologised policy” towards the Taliban.
Russia was the first country to open a business representative office in Kabul after the Taliban takeover, and has announced plans to use Afghanistan as a transit hub for gas heading to Southeast Asia.
Despite not officially recognising the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan, several countries have recently engaged diplomatically with the group.
Even before the US pulled out of Afghanistan, China was building its relations with the Taliban, hosting its leaders in 2019 for peace negotiations.
Two months ago, India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar spoke to Muttaqi over the phone, their first publicly acknowledged conversation.
