Can Russia help reduce the tension between Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Russia has close ties to the Taliban and is interested in Islamabad, but analysts say the country's leverage is uncertain.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, elbows on his knees, leans toward Pakistan's army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for talks in Rawalpindi on Oct. 14.

While Kolokoltsev was in Pakistan, Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), flew to Kabul to meet with Taliban intelligence chief Abdul Haq Vashq.

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End of list Officially, Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan have issued slightly more than standard statements about these meetings. But the signs are clear: Pakistan and Afghanistan have spent the past year exchanging fire and publicly threatening each other. Qatar and Türkiye brokered a ceasefire in Doha last October, and China hosted talks in Urumqi in April, but attacks inside Pakistan have continued. Islamabad attacked Afghanistan again in June, September and this month.

Now it seems that Russia has stepped in as a mediator.

Zamir Kabulov, Moscow's special representative for Afghanistan, told Russian Ambassador Arjan earlier this month that his country is ready to play the role of a peace mediator between Kabul and Islamabad if requested by both sides.

Faisal Niaz, Pakistan's ambassador to Russia, said in March that Islamabad had approached Moscow. However, the Taliban have not publicly asked for Russian mediation, raising the question of how much and in what capacity Moscow can push Pakistan and Afghanistan to negotiate, while other mediators have struggled.

A complex history adds to the challenge Russia faces.

Pakistan's military media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said the Rawalpindi meeting discussed issues of "mutual interests and the regional security environment, with special emphasis on strengthening bilateral security cooperation".

Afghanistan was not mentioned in the statement, and neither Russian nor Taliban officials have disclosed what the intelligence chiefs talked about. However, Moscow has expressed concern over the conflict.

"We are seriously concerned about the military confrontation between Pakistan and Afghanistan that is affecting civilians, including children," the Russian Embassy in Kabul posted on X earlier this month.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Pakistani attacks between September 30 and October 1 killed at least 10 civilians, most of them children.

In decades past, the idea of ​​Russian mediation between Pakistan and the Taliban might have been unthinkable. During the Cold War and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was and remains in many ways one of India's closest strategic and military partners, Pakistan's neighbor having fought numerous wars against it. While in Afghanistan, Russia supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the 1990s.

But in recent years, Russia has significantly strengthened its relations with Pakistan and the Taliban. Then, Pakistan's 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 recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

The changes stem from Russia's desire to expand its options in South Asia, at a time when India is embracing the US to counter the rise of the Afghan branch of ISIS, also known as the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, or ISKP. While the Taliban are concerned about the Afghan government, the ISKP has wider territorial ambitions and in 2024 carried out an attack in Moscow that killed nearly 150 people. Taliban and ISKP are sworn enemies.

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

"Mediation will help Moscow maintain its regional influence and avoid a vacuum that could lead to extra-regional re-engagement," he told Al Jazeera.

Qatar and Türkiye brokered a ceasefire between Pakistan and the Taliban in Doha last October, but talks broke down in Istanbul the following month and fighting resumed. Islamabad also carried out airstrikes inside Afghanistan. China hosted talks in Urumqi in April.

In mid-September, Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin met with Taliban officials in Kabul and Kandahar before traveling to Islamabad.

An attack in Kohat on 18 September was followed by Pakistan's attacks on Afghanistan on 24 September and 1 October.

"Other actors have so far achieved more tangible results in mediating this conflict," Eldaniz Gusinov, Central Asia analyst and head of research at Nightingale International, a geopolitical forecasting agency, told Al Jazeera.

The Russian effort was halted at the Moscow meeting on October 5.

Kabulov told TASS that the Afghan delegation disagreed with Afghanistan being mentioned too much in connection with "terrorism".

"For Pakistan, this is a fundamental security issue, not just an issue," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Sajjad Haider Khan told a weekly media briefing on October 9.

Tamim Bahis, a Kabul-based security analyst, said the protest reflected Kabul's long-standing position.

"Accepting language that repeatedly associates Afghanistan with terrorism could be seen as acknowledging the same accusations that Kabul has consistently denied," he told Al Jazeera.

At the Moscow meeting, Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, said that "terrorism" was at the core of Afghanistan's problems.

Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Motaghi said that the problems of the two countries can be solved through dialogue and diplomacy, according to Afghan media reports.

Pakistan says that the Pakistani Taliban and other armed groups have taken refuge in Afghanistan.

Behis said Kabul denies the claim, saying it will not allow its territory to be used against other countries and that Pakistan's security problems are mainly internal.

Moscow's public warnings focused on the ISKP.

"There is no visible public pressure from Russia on the Taliban over the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Moscow is unlikely to apply such pressure," Gusinov 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 intense pressure from the Taliban on behalf of Pakistan would undermine Moscow's position as a neutral mediator and its partnership with the Taliban against the ISKP.

Abdul Said, a Sweden-based analyst specializing in armed groups and security dynamics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, told Al Jazeera that Russia's main concern is the ISKP, and it appears to be satisfied with the Taliban's efforts to counter the group.

However, Russia has something that previous mediators did not. In July 2025, it was the only country to recognize the Taliban government.

This could create another source of influence for Moscow, Timurkhan said.

"Taliban officials' interest in maintaining this recognition and expanding cooperation with Moscow could give Russia more leverage in efforts to take action against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban and other terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan," he said.