The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has prompted a variety of responses from Moscow, whose security experience in the country is longstanding—including a previous, also failed, attempt at state-building in the 1980s. While schadenfreude and strategic anti-U.S. messaging forms the most visible aspect of Russia’s immediate response, Moscow’s more material concerns—regional instability, narcotics trafficking and the spread of radical Islamic terrorism—should not be understated. As Afghanistan’s political order readjusts under the Taliban, expect Moscow to vie for an outsized role in the process—engaging in multinational diplomatic efforts while also using the opportunity to call for increased Eurasian strategic coordination through non-Western venues such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the Russia-India-China (RIC) Triangle. Thus far, official Russian messaging toward the Taliban can be characterized as somewhere between cautious optimism and a more measured “wait and see” approach.
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