Russia plans to help the Taliban restore Soviet-made military equipment under a military-technical cooperation agreement signed May 27, Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s presidential envoy for Afghanistan, told the state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti.
Available data cited by The Moscow Times shows the Taliban still has dozens of T-55 and T-62 tanks, BMP-1 and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters, several Soviet-made transport aircraft, as well as various artillery systems and small arms. The equipment is a legacy of the Soviet Union’s presence in Afghanistan before its withdrawal in 1989.
Details of the May agreement have not been disclosed. Kabulov described it as a framework document that allows for separate contracts to supply various systems.
The Taliban is still designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. In Russia, however, its status has changed. In December 2024 Vladimir Putin signed a law opening the way for the movement to be removed from Russia’s terrorist list, and in April 2025, Russia’s Supreme Court suspended the ban on Taliban activities in the country.
Ruslan Suleymanov, an expert on the Middle East and Central Asia, told The Insider that Russia may need to maintain good relations with the Taliban due to the fact that Afghanistan still presents a terrorist threat, one that Russian security agencies are “clearly not coping” with.
“There is also the threat from the Central Asian republics, for example Tajikistan,” Suleymanov said. “Recall that those who carried out the terrorist attack at Crocus [City Hall] were from Tajikistan. The Kremlin clearly wants to coordinate the fight against the terrorist threat with the Taliban.”
Suleymanov also said there is an image-building element to Moscow’s ties with the Taliban.
“The Taliban is one of the most vivid modern examples of resistance to the West,” he said. “Russian propaganda likes to hold them up as an example. And for Moscow, which claims the mantle of leader of the so-called Global South, it is important to show that it is patronizing groups such as the Taliban and Palestinian radicals represented by Hamas, who can in their own way be described as anti-Western forces.
Since Russia is unable to conduct active trade the way Iran, Pakistan, and China do, and ranks only 10th, the Kremlin, in its preferred manner, offers symbolic gestures in the form of military cooperation — sending a couple of instructors, repairing equipment, and holding exercises. Moscow is fully capable of that. These are not tens of billions of dollars in investment, as China offers. Moscow is not capable of that.”
