Can Russia help ease tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Islamabad, Pakistan – Sitting with his elbows on his knees, Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev leaned towards Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for talks in Rawalpindi on October 14.

While Kolokoltsev was in Pakistan, Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), flew into Kabul to meet the Taliban’s intelligence chief, Abdul Haq Wasiq.

Officially, Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan have issued little beyond standard statements about the meetings. But the signs are clear: Pakistan and Afghanistan have spent the past year exchanging fire and public threats. Qatar and Turkiye brokered a ceasefire in Doha last October and China hosted talks in Urumqi in April, but attacks inside Pakistan continued. Islamabad again struck Afghan territory in June, September and this month.

Russia now appears to be stepping in as a mediator.

Moscow’s special representative for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, told Russia’s TASS news agency earlier this month that his country was ready to play peace broker between Kabul and Islamabad if both sides requested it.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Russia, Faisal Niaz Tirmizi, said in March that Islamabad had approached Moscow. The Taliban, though, have not publicly requested Russian mediation, raising questions about how much and in what capacity Moscow can push Pakistan and Afghanistan to talks when other mediators have struggled.

A complicated history adds to the challenge Russia faces.

A diplomatic opening

Pakistan’s military media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said the Rawalpindi meeting discussed issues of “mutual interest and the regional security environment, with particular emphasis on strengthening bilateral security cooperation.”

The statement did not mention Afghanistan and neither Russian officials nor the Taliban have disclosed what the intelligence chiefs discussed. Moscow has, however, voiced concern about the fighting.

“We are seriously concerned about the ongoing military confrontation between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which affects civilians, including children,” the Russian embassy in Kabul posted on X earlier this month.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Pakistani strikes between September 30 and October 1 killed at least 10 civilians, mostly children.

In decades past, the idea of Russia mediating between Pakistan and the Taliban might have been unthinkable. Throughout the Cold War and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was – and remains in many ways – one of the closest strategic and military partners of India, the neighbour Pakistan has fought multiple wars against. While in Afghanistan, Russia backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban throughout the 1990s.

But in recent years, Russia has significantly strengthened relations with both Pakistan and the Taliban. Then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was in Moscow when Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022. Last year, Russia became the first country in the world to officially recognise the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Those shifts have been driven by Russia’s desire to broaden its options in South Asia, at a time when India has embraced the United States and to counter the rise of the Afghan branch of ISIL, also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province or ISKP. While the Taliban are concerned with ruling Afghanistan, ISKP has broader territorial ambitions and carried out an attack in Moscow in 2024 that killed nearly 150 people. The Taliban and the ISKP are sworn enemies.

Fighting between Pakistan and the Taliban created regional instability and Moscow was worried that could make it easier for armed groups to spill into Central Asia, said Taimur Khan, a research associate at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).

“Mediation also helps Moscow preserve its regional influence and avoid a vacuum that could invite renewed extra-regional involvement,” he told Al Jazeera.

Why mediation stalled

Qatar and Turkiye brokered a ceasefire between Pakistan and the Taliban in Doha last October, but talks in Istanbul collapsed the following month and skirmishes resumed. Islamabad also launched air raids inside Afghanistan. China hosted talks in Urumqi in April.

In mid-September, Turkiye’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, met Taliban officials in Kabul and Kandahar before travelling to Islamabad.

An attack in Kohat followed on September 18, with Pakistan striking Afghanistan on September 24 and October 1.

“Other actors have so far achieved more tangible mediation results in this conflict,” Eldaniz Gusseinov, a Central Asia analyst and head of research at the geopolitical foresight agency, Nightingale Int, told Al Jazeera.

Russia’s own effort stalled at a Moscow meeting on October 5.

Kabulov told TASS that the Afghan delegation objected to Afghanistan being mentioned too often in connection with “terrorism”.

“For Pakistan, this is a substantive security issue, not merely a matter of wording,” Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesperson, Sajjad Haider Khan, said on October 9 at a weekly media briefing.

Kabul-based security analyst Tameem Bahiss said the objection reflected Kabul’s longstanding position.

“Accepting language that repeatedly associates Afghanistan with terrorism could be seen as an acknowledgement of the very allegations Kabul has consistently denied,” he told Al Jazeera.

The TTP problem

At the Moscow meeting, Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, said “terrorism” remained at the core of Afghanistan’s problems.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said the two countries’ problems could be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, according to Afghan media.

Pakistan says the Pakistani Taliban and other armed groups shelter in Afghanistan.

Kabul rejects the allegation, saying it does not allow its territory to be used against other countries and that Pakistan’s security problems are largely internal, Bahiss said.

Moscow’s public warnings have focused on the ISKP.

“There is no visible public pressure from Russia on the Taliban over Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and Moscow is unlikely to exert such pressure,” Gusseinov said. TTP is the official name of the Pakistani Taliban, which is behind dozens of the deadliest attacks Pakistan has suffered in recent years.

He argued that pressing the Taliban hard on Pakistan’s behalf would undermine Moscow’s standing as a neutral mediator and its partnership with the Taliban against ISKP.

“Russia’s primary concern is ISKP and it appears satisfied with the Taliban’s efforts to counter the group,” Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based analyst specialising in armed groups and security dynamics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, told Al Jazeera.

What Moscow brings

Still, Russia has something earlier mediators did not. In July 2025, it became the only country to recognise the Taliban government.

Taimur Khan said that could give Moscow another source of influence.

“The Taliban authorities’ interest in preserving that recognition and expanding cooperation with Moscow could give Russia additional influence in seeking action against the TTP and other terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan,” he said.

In May, the two sides signed an unpublished military-technical agreement covering, according to Kabulov, the repair and maintenance of equipment the Taliban already hold, mostly Soviet and Russian-made.

Three days after the signing, the Taliban’s Defence Minister, Mohammad Yaqoob, said Pakistan would soon no longer dare to launch strikes.

On June 9 and 10, Pakistani aircraft struck Kunar, Khost and Paktika provinces, killing 13 civilians, according to the Afghan government.

“Russia has greater access to the Taliban than any other major power, but its actual leverage is considerably more limited than is often assumed,” analyst Gusseinov said.

Sayed said senior Taliban leaders continued visiting Russia and India as fighting escalated, seemingly signalling they could offset Pakistan’s military superiority through new alignments.

“While the military and political significance of these ties remains unclear, the Taliban present such diplomatic developments to the Afghan public, particularly their supporters, as political achievements that reinforce their image of strength,” he said.

Why the SCO matters

Pakistan chairs the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) for 2026-27 and will host the 10-member bloc’s summit in Islamabad next year.

The Taliban were not invited to this year’s summit in Bishkek, where members called for an inclusive government in Kabul.

On July 16, then-Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said Afghanistan first needed diplomatic relations with member states, when asked whether Pakistan was blocking its inclusion in the SCO.

In September, Tirmizi, the Pakistani envoy in Moscow, said he did not see full SCO membership for Afghanistan as an option under the current Taliban government.

“The chairmanship strengthens Moscow’s reasons to invest in its relationship with Pakistan and manage differences over Afghanistan constructively,” Taimur Khan said.

The Foreign Office did not answer Al Jazeera’s questions about whether the Taliban would be invited next year.

“I cannot recall an instance where Kabul has explicitly requested Moscow to mediate between the two countries,” Bahiss said. “Nevertheless, Kabul’s repeated calls for diplomacy and its relatively close relations with Russia suggest that it would likely welcome Russian mediation if Moscow offered to play such a role.”