By Khushal Khan

Russia’s growing embrace of the Taliban regime is exposing a dangerous contradiction in its Afghanistan policy. Moscow says it wants a stable Afghanistan free from terrorism, yet its diplomatic engagement increasingly shields a regime accused by Pakistan and other regional states of allowing militant organisations to operate from Afghan territory.

The eighth Moscow Format Consultations, held on October 5, 2026, offered a revealing illustration. The meeting brought together Afghanistan’s neighbours and regional powers to discuss security, economic cooperation and connectivity. But it ended without a joint statement -- the first such failure in the format’s history since its establishment in 2017  -- after the Taliban delegation objected to language linking Afghanistan with terrorism.

That disagreement was not a diplomatic technicality. It exposed the central problem with regional engagement: governments can hold conferences, sign trade agreements and exchange delegations, but none of these measures can produce lasting stability while the Taliban regime refuse to acknowledge - let alone verifiably dismantle - militant infrastructure operating from Afghan soil.

The question is no longer whether the region should talk to Kabul. Geography makes contact unavoidable. The real question is whether engagement will be used to secure measurable changes or simply provide the Taliban with diplomatic legitimacy while its neighbours continue to face the consequences of cross-border militancy.

• Moscow’s selective approach to terrorism

Russia has moved further than any other country in normalising relations with the Taliban. It removed the group from its list of banned terrorist organisations in April 2025 and formally recognised the Taliban regime in July 2025, becoming the first country to do so.

Recognition is a sovereign decision, and Russia is entitled to pursue its own diplomatic interests. But recognition without meaningful conditions has given the Taliban a major political prize without securing verifiable counterterrorism commitments in return.

The eighth Moscow Format meeting demonstrated the limits of this approach. In previous consultations, the participants had accepted language addressing the presence of terrorist organisations in Afghanistan. This time, the Taliban objected to the wording. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry subsequently said the refusal to accept previously agreed language showed reluctance on Kabul’s part to acknowledge that terrorism was emanating from Afghan territory.

Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Ambassador Muhammad Sadiq, placed the security issue before the forum. Islamabad’s position is that terrorism remains at the heart of Afghanistan’s problems and is rooted in links between the Taliban regime and militant organisations.

Moscow, however, appears to be approaching Afghanistan through a narrower security lens. Its principal concern is the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and the possibility that militants could threaten Central Asia and Russia itself. That threat is real. But counterterrorism cannot be selective: a militant group does not become less dangerous because its targets are outside Russia’s immediate strategic priorities.

The contradiction is particularly striking because Russia’s own assessments identify the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as one of the largest militant formations based in Afghanistan. A Russian Foreign Ministry assessment published in February 2026 estimated that between 20,000 and 23,000 fighters affiliated with international terrorist organisations were present in Afghanistan, including 5,000 to 7,000 TTP members and approximately 3,000 ISKP fighters. More than half of the estimated total were foreign nationals, according to the assessment.

If those are Moscow’s own estimates, why does its diplomatic approach give so little weight to the organisation that Pakistan identifies as its principal cross-border security threat?

• China wants stability, but stability cannot be selective

China’s engagement with the Taliban is driven largely by security and economic considerations. Beijing wants a predictable neighbourhood for its western region, protection against threats associated with the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), access to Afghanistan’s mineral resources and a secure environment for regional investment.

Pakistan and China share an interest in a peaceful Afghanistan. But stability cannot be achieved by overlooking militant organisations that operate from Afghan territory and threaten neighbouring countries. Economic corridors, mineral projects and regional trade routes require security guarantees, not diplomatic assurances.

Russia and China may see no immediate threat to their own territory from every militant group operating in Afghanistan. Pakistan, however, has faced the consequences directly. The danger is that a group tolerated today because it targets another country may eventually expand its operations across the region.

Russia itself has repeatedly warned about this possibility. President Vladimir Putin, speaking at a meeting of CIS security officials on September 29, 2022, warned that militants in Afghanistan could recruit fighters, establish new cells and reactivate sleeper networks in neighbouring countries. In July 2024, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin warned at a BRICS counterterrorism meeting that terrorist groups in Afghanistan sought to expand their influence beyond existing conflict zones.

In November 2025, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu warned about extremist fighters moving from Afghan territory into neighbouring and CIS states. In February 2026, Russia’s Foreign Ministry estimated that Afghanistan hosted 20,000 to 23,000 fighters belonging to international militant organisations. On May 14, 2026, Shoigu cited a similar range at an SCO security meeting in Bishkek. Later that month, Federal Security Service Director Alexander Bortnikov warned that ISKP was recruiting among citizens of CIS states and migrant workers in Russia, building covert networks and planning attacks across the region.

These warnings reveal that Moscow understands the threat. Its problem is not a lack of information but the apparent willingness to separate its own security concerns from Pakistan’s.

• The threat is not confined to Pakistan

The militant landscape in Afghanistan has regional implications. Russia faces the risk of Central Asian militant networks, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Jamaat Ansarullah and Katibat Imam al-Bukhari. UN monitoring reports have described the presence of foreign militant groups in Afghanistan, including organisations with Central Asian connections.

Iran has also faced attacks by Jaish al-Adl in Sistan-Baluchestan, a province bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. An October 2024 attack in Taftan killed 10 Iranian police personnel. In November 2025, Chinese nationals were targeted in cross-border attacks from Afghan territory into Tajikistan.

These incidents should serve as a warning: militant organisations sheltered or tolerated in one part of the region can threaten another. No regional power can assume that the danger will remain confined to its neighbour.

ISKP is another major concern. Which have presence in Kunar, Nangarhar and Helmand provinces of Afghanistan as important operational areas for the group. The group has benefited from the transfer of experienced fighters following the collapse of Daesh strongholds in Syria, while former Taliban fighters who failed to secure positions within the post-2021 administration have also moved towards ISKP.

The Taliban regime say they are fighting ISKP and reject allegations that Afghanistan is being used as a safe haven for international militants. Their position must be tested against independent evidence and verifiable action. Simply denying the presence of militant groups does not resolve the security concerns of neighbouring states.

• Pakistan says diplomacy has failed to secure action

Islamabad maintains that it has exhausted diplomatic channels to persuade the Taliban regime to prevent attacks from Afghan territory.

According to Pakistani officials, Islamabad has undertaken four foreign minister-level visits, two missions involving the defence minister or the director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, five visits by special representatives, five secretary-level meetings and one national security adviser visit. Officials said eight Joint Coordination Committee meetings, 225 border flag meetings were held and foreign ministry also issued 836 protest notes and 13 formal demarches.

Pakistan has also sent religious scholars and tribal jirgas to Kabul and accepted mediation efforts in Doha, Istanbul, Riyadh and Ürümqi.

Despite these efforts, Pakistani officials  say the Taliban regime has refused to provide written guarantees against militant activity, offering verbal assurances instead. They further said that more than five dozen terrorist camps, staging areas and logistical facilities remain intact in Afghanistan.

The most important test is therefore straightforward: has the Taliban administration taken verifiable action against the groups accused of attacking Pakistan? Islamabad says it has not.

According to Pakistani official, 1,429 Pakistanis have been killed and 2,679 injured in terrorism emanating from Afghan soil during 2026 so far.

Pakistan also says more than 260 Afghan nationals involved in cross-border attacks and killed while fighting alongside the TTP have been identified. The authorities say they have established the individuals’ identities, home addresses, family links and militant affiliations, with funerals in their home areas providing additional evidence of their Afghan origins.

The figure, according to the Pakistani officials, is not a complete count. It excludes militants whose identities could not be confirmed, bodies that could not be identified and Afghan nationals still operating within militant formations.

Pakistan further estimates that Afghan nationals make up around 70 per cent of the militant formations infiltrating its territory.

There are also proofs of links between Taliban officials and militants groups living in Afghanistan. For example on September 21, 2026, Qari Zaki, a deputy head of GDI Section 651, the head of the Taliban administration’s Reforms Commission and the police chief of Logar attended a Fateha ceremony for Anas Khan, an Afghan suicide bomber who attacked the gate of a police station mosque in Kohat, a district in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

While Badruddin Yousaf, the son of Badghis Deputy Governor Mawlawi Ghulam Muhammad Muhammadi, received training at an Afghan Taliban centre before joining the TTP. He was also killed in Kulachi, Dera Ismail Khan area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on January 30–31, 2025.

• The money question: who is keeping Afghanistan afloat?

The Taliban authorities also benefit from international engagement and financial assistance, even as transparency over the use of funds remains a major concern.

A Kabul Institute report published in October 2026, Who Gets the Aid Money in Afghanistan, says international donors had confirmed transferring $8 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021. It identifies a further $3.78 billion in firm commitments and $94 million in pledges that had not yet reached the stage of contracted commitments.

The report identifies the United States as the largest humanitarian donor, with $1.64 billion paid and $1.14 billion committed, followed by the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and the European Union. Multilateral institutions, including the Asian Development Bank and World Bank, have also provided substantial support.

Separately, the report records $12.04 billion in development finance commitments, for which payment data have not been published.

While $17.5 billion in direct foreign grants received by the Taliban regime since 2021.

The economic question remains important. According to trade figures attributed to the Taliban authorities, Afghanistan imports around $12 billion in goods annually while exporting approximately $1.7 billion, leaving a reported trade deficit of about $10.3 billion.

How does an economy with a limited industrial base, weak investment and restricted access to international finance cover such a gap? Foreign assistance, grants, informal financial channels and other sources all need to be examined. According to Afghan sources narcotics trafficking provides substantial revenue to militant networks and that proceeds are shared among Taliban-linked clerics, the TTP and other armed groups.

The Kabul Institute report highlights a separate but related problem: large sums are transferred into humanitarian operations, yet public records often do not show what happens after the first recipient receives the money. Humanitarian assistance is essential for millions of Afghans facing poverty and hunger. But aid must not become a substitute for accountability, and its delivery should be transparent enough to ensure that it benefits civilians rather than strengthening opaque power structures.

• A system of exclusion, radicalisation and resource capture

The Taliban administration’s domestic policies also raise questions about the kind of Afghanistan that is emerging under its rule. Since 2021, Taliban have established 22,972 madrassas while only 269 modern schools have been established, a ratio of approximately 85 to one. While around 90,000 teachers have been replaced by nearly 100,000 clerics aligned with the Taliban, 18 university disciplines have been abolished, more than 200 subjects rewritten and 679 textbooks banned.

Nor does the Taliban’s control of Kabul necessarily mean that the country is stable. Ethnic exclusion, reprisals, poverty and internal divisions have fuelled resistance. Taliban official figures shows that 178 attacks took place across 29 provinces between August and October 2026, killing 367 Taliban fighters and injuring more than 219. These figures confirmed that armed opposition and internal conflict remain significant challenges for Taliban inside their country.

Competition over Afghanistan’s natural resources is another source of tension. The country possesses substantial deposits of gold, lapis lazuli, copper, lithium, rare earth elements, cobalt and other minerals. Afghanistan has more than 1,400 mineral fields and that Badakhshan and Takhar alone contain more than 77 types of minerals.

The Kandahari Taliban leadership has increasingly taken control of lucrative mining areas in Badakhshan, including gold and lapis lazuli operations previously linked to commanders associated with the Haqqani network.The mining contracts have been awarded without transparent tenders or effective legal oversight, with many of 203 contracts valued at more than $250 million going to companies linked to Taliban commanders.

The alleged corruption involving payments connected to the Wikador gold mine, a fraudulent talc deal in Nangarhar and secret stakes held by senior commanders in the Awez gold mine. Taliban Army Chief of Staff Fasihuddin Fitrat is among those who holding a 7 per cent stake.

Taliban also forcefully seizing farmland, forests stripped and an illegal 10 per cent tax imposed on vehicles in some areas. People are resisting against Taliban behaviour and may be you remember there was also a deadly protest held in Samti, Takhar, in January 2026, in which four people were reportedly killed and five injured. Such grievances suggest that resistance is not simply the product of foreign interference; it can also grow out of domestic repression, corruption and competition for resources.

A government struggling with internal factionalism while accused of tolerating more than 20 militant organisations is hardly a reliable partner for major regional economic projects.

• Connectivity cannot come before counterterrorism

Russia, China and other regional powers have promoted trade and connectivity with Afghanistan. Projects such as the Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway, CASA-1000 and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline could contribute to regional economic integration.

But these projects depend on secure routes, predictable governance and the absence of militant networks capable of disrupting infrastructure. They cannot succeed if armed groups use Afghan territory to plan attacks across borders.

The argument that economic engagement will eventually produce security reverses the necessary order of priorities. Counterterrorism is a precondition for connectivity, not a competing priority.

Pakistan has repeatedly argued that its security concerns must be addressed before normalisation can progress. Ignoring those concerns in the pursuit of regional trade will not make them disappear. It will simply expose infrastructure, investment and cross-border commerce to the same instability that has undermined Afghanistan for decades.

• The Taliban are already engaging the West

One argument advanced in favour of Russia’s close engagement with the Taliban is that diplomatic isolation could push Kabul towards Western powers. Moscow appears keen to keep the Taliban within its strategic orbit, while Beijing wants a stable environment for its economic interests.

But the assumption that the Taliban are exclusively aligned with Russia and China -- or that isolation would automatically drive them towards the West -- overlooks the group’s own record of dealing with competing powers.

The Taliban’s return to power followed the 2020 Doha Agreement between the United States and the Taliban. Since August 2021, Taliban have maintained direct channels with Washington. US envoys, including Zalmay Khalilzad and Adam Boehler, have held contacts and meetings with Taliban officials in Kabul.

The Taliban publicly criticise the United States while continuing to negotiate with American representatives over issues including detainees, financial questions, access and diplomatic recognition. In other words, the group does not necessarily choose one geopolitical camp. It engages multiple powers when doing so serves its interests.

Russia and China should therefore not mistake diplomatic access for strategic loyalty. The Taliban can accept recognition from Moscow, pursue economic contacts with Beijing, negotiate with Washington and maintain relationships with other regional actors at the same time. The objective is to extract resources, legitimacy and political space without necessarily changing the policies that concern its neighbours.

• Russia cannot claim ignorance

Moscow’s own public statements make its current approach difficult to defend. Russia has repeatedly acknowledged that Afghanistan hosts thousands of foreign militants and that these networks pose risks beyond the country’s borders.

Its February 2026 estimate placed TTP strength in Afghanistan at 5,000 to 7,000 fighters -- considerably higher than its estimate of approximately 3,000 ISKP members.

This creates an obvious contradiction. If Russia considers the presence of thousands of TTP fighters in Afghanistan a security concern, why does its engagement with the Taliban not make action against that organisation a central condition?

A counterterrorism policy focused primarily on ISKP while giving insufficient attention to the TTP is selective by definition. Pakistan cannot be expected to accept a regional security framework that recognises the threat to Russia and Central Asia but marginalises the threat to Pakistan.

The same principle applies to other militant organisations. The presence of Central Asian fighters, groups linked to al-Qaeda and other transnational networks should concern every country participating in the Moscow Format. Their activities cannot be addressed through diplomatic language alone.

• Engagement must have conditions

None of this means regional countries should abandon diplomacy or humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan. Millions of Afghans are struggling with poverty, food insecurity, displacement and the collapse of essential services. They should not be punished for the policies of the regime governing them.

But there is a difference between maintaining diplomatic contact and granting political legitimacy without accountability. There is also a difference between supporting Afghan civilians and providing unrestricted political or financial benefits to an administration accused of allowing militant organisations to operate from its territory.

Russia, China and other regional powers should insist on measurable commitments from the Taliban authorities:

• Verifiable action against TTP camps, staging areas and logistical networks operating from Afghan territory.
• The dismantling of facilities used by ISKP and other international militant organisations.
• An independent monitoring mechanism to assess whether militant groups have been prevented from recruiting, training, financing and launching cross-border attacks.
• Transparent investigations into allegations of official links with suicide bombers and other militant networks.
• Guarantees that Afghan territory will not be used to threaten neighbouring countries.
• Greater transparency in foreign assistance, mineral contracts and revenue management.

Pakistan should also continue to pursue diplomacy and global powers should take Islamabad’s concerns about the using of Afghan soil against them serious. .

The Taliban regime, for their part, cannot expect recognition and economic cooperation while refusing to provide written and verifiable guarantees on the central security concerns of their neighbours.

• The real test of the Moscow Format

The eighth Moscow Format meeting should have been an opportunity to address the most pressing challenge facing Afghanistan and the region. Instead, the failure to agree on a joint statement exposed the limits of a diplomatic process that increasingly risks accommodating the Taliban rather than holding them accountable.

Russia wants to preserve its influence in Kabul. China wants economic access and a secure neighbourhood. Central Asian countries want protection against militant spillover. Pakistan wants an end to attacks originating from Afghan territory. These interests are not necessarily incompatible, but they cannot be reconciled by ignoring the central security problem.

The Taliban authorities have received diplomatic access, economic opportunities and international assistance. What remains missing is credible evidence that they are prepared to end the activities of militant groups threatening neighbouring countries.

For Pakistan, the cost of this failure is measured in lives lost and communities living under the threat of terrorism.

Moscow must decide whether it wants to be remembered as the power that helped bring the Taliban into regional diplomacy or the power that used its influence to secure meaningful counterterrorism commitments.

Recognition is not a counterterrorism strategy. Conferences are not security guarantees. Trade agreements cannot replace action against militant infrastructure.

The central message is simple: engagement with the Taliban authorities can continue, but normalisation without accountability will fail. Until the Taliban dismantle militant networks operating from Afghan soil and provide Pakistan with verifiable guarantees that cross-border terrorism will end, lasting regional stability, meaningful connectivity and genuine economic cooperation will remain out of reach.

• Khushal Khan is an expert on Afghanistan affairs. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The South Asia Times.