Russia has been cultivating ties with the Taliban to increase its influence in Afghanistan three decades after Moscow’s humiliating defeat there helped hasten the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Washington Post: Russia regains a complicated status – Afghanistan power broker
Nikolai Patrushev (C), Secretary of the Security Council of Russia (R) arrives to the first meeting of national security secretaries of Afghanistan, China, Iran, India and Russia, in the Iranian capital Tehran on Sept. 26, 2018.
