Russia and the Taliban government in Afghanistan have signed a military-technical cooperation agreement, Russian news agencies including Interfax have reported.

The development comes two weeks after on May 14 Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia's Security Council, was quoted by Interfax as saying Russia – the only country in the world to formally recognise the Taliban government – was moving to establish a "full-fledged partnership" with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and was encouraging other countries in the region to expand cooperation with Taliban-ruled ‌Kabul.

Shoigu reportedly said that cooperation with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan was important for the security and development of the wider region and that Moscow was building a "pragmatic dialogue" with the Taliban that ranged over areas including security, trade, culture and humanitarian support.

One matter of concern for Moscow is clearly Afghanistan’s border with the Central Asian countries of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, with Afghanistan-based terrorist groups such as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP, or ISIS-K) able to exploit porous parts of the frontier as part of terrorist operations that can extend to Russia. The Taliban, as an adversary of ISKP and other such terrorist groups, can help Russia address such difficulties. Beijing, meanwhile, is helping Tajikistan beef up its border with Afghanistan after five Chinese workers were killed last November by unidentified cross-border attackers.

The Taliban was outlawed by Russia as a terrorist movement in 2003, but the prohibition was removed in April 2025. The Islamist fundamentalists returned to power in Kabul in August 2021 after US and Nato troops exited Afghanistan.

Another likely ambition of Russia in working for a stabilised Afghanistan is to finally make the country a reliable interconnection between Central Asia and South Asia – the economic gains that could be achieved from having reliable railways, roads, energy pipelines and power lines running from landlocked Central Asia to Pakistan – a country with oceanic ports on the Arabian Sea that provide shipping options for much of the Global South – would be sizeable. As things stand, projects aiming to deliver all of these things are progressing, but only very slowly because of the instability that still prevails in much of Afghanistan. The Taliban, meanwhile, want to open up the Wakhan Corridor, which would give Afghanistan an operational border crossing with China, as reported by IntelliNews on May 19.

Russian media reported that the military-technical agreement was signed on May 27 by Shoigu and the Taliban government's Defence Minister Mohammad Yaqoob during a security forum held on the outskirts of Moscow. Yaqoob is a former military chief of the Taliban and the son of the group’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The content of the agreement has not yet been disclosed by either party. That has led to speculation over whether the document represents a significant change in military cooperation or is simply a political posture.

Military-technical cooperation agreements can cover areas including arms sales, military training, technical maintenance, logistical support and technical assistance.

“In reality, we’re definitely not going to see a full-blown military alliance or a mutual defence coalition,” Ruslan Suleimanov, an analyst at the New Eurasian Strategies (NEST) Center, told The Insider.

"Russia's economy is under so much pressure right now that it can't afford to provide free military assistance to the Taliban government," Hamid Hakimi, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, was quoted as saying by Azattyk Asia.

Countries including China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have established growing diplomatic, trade and economic ties with the Taliban, though they have stopped short of officially recognising its Afghan administration.

When speaking of aiming for “full-fledged” relations, Shoigu ‌was commenting during a meeting with his counterparts from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a 10-member grouping that includes China, India, Iran, Pakistan and all the Central Asian states except Turkmenistan.

The SCO should revive its contact group with Afghanistan, said Shoigu.

Like Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have ended their designation of the Taliban as “terrorist”.