Taliban, Russia are cozying up to each other, why?

Article excerpt

Russia and Afghanistan's Taliban government signed a weapons-repair agreement covering Soviet-era and Russian-made arms, marking a deeper alignment between Moscow and Kabul. The deal reflects Russia's broader push to expand influence in Central Asia and counter U.S. presence in the region, while the Taliban seeks military support for its rule. The arrangement implicates Pakistan, which has historically backed the Taliban, and reveals Moscow's strategy to leverage Afghanistan as a bulwark against Western influence, a shift from decades of Cold War adversarialism to pragmatic cooperation.