If the main domestic problem in Russia remains the failed fight against the coronavirus, the main foreign policy problem is gradually becoming the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It seems that in the minds of the Kremlin’s «strategists» the desire to embark on yet another military adventure is at odds with the vestiges of common sense. This was demonstrated by the recent visit of a Taliban delegation to Moscow, where they assured the Russian leadership that they did not intend to attack Russia, as well as Sergei Lavrov’s statement that the Kremlin would not intervene in the situation in Afghanistan unless it spilled over its borders.
Regarding the desire for military action, attention should be paid to Maria Zakharova’s recent statement that Russian troops are ready to intervene in the situation on the Afghan border, based on official statements. However, since there are few official statements on how the Kremlin plans to deal with a future Taliban-led Afghanistan, unofficial comments by experts close to the Kremlin should be taken into account. For example, Igor Korotchenko, known for his hawkish stance, called for preparations to repel Taliban attacks on Tajikistan, which has already asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for help in defending its borders. Is this the second Afghan?
In this sense, an article by a pro-regime propagandist and member of the Vesti program, Andrei Medvedev, on the First Afghan War is instructive. The article states: «The Russian reaction to the Afghan issue is more acute than to Syria, because Afghanistan. Yes. There is a connection to that war, painful and wrong… That war was necessary, forced, and the decision of the Soviet leadership was correct on the whole (although it completely ignored the experience of the Russian Empire’s military Orientalism). The war in Afghanistan was a direct continuation of the Great Game. And, of course, the USSR did not lose the war. It controlled the country much better than the Americans. A fairly combat-ready army and special services were created. Not like now. And if Gorbachev had not betrayed the Najibullah government, it could have successfully carried out the process of national reconciliation. So the war was not lost, it was sold, and the subsequent efforts of the perestroika-democratic press turned it into a shameful war, turning war veterans into executioners and killers, and implanting in the minds of citizens the thesis of the uselessness of the war that supposedly brought down the USSR. Today, this myth about the Afghan war is actively supported by the liberal press. …. In the 1990s, 30,000 people died every year from Afghan heroin, twice the number of Soviet casualties in the Afghan war. So the current situation in Afghanistan calls into question the final and clear assessment of our 1979-1989 war. At the highest level, we must finally say that the Soviet wars defended the country’s geopolitical interests on distant frontiers. Stop telling stories about an international debt that did not exist.»
In general, it is clear that if in the 1990s the wrongness of the war in Afghanistan was an informal national consensus (which did not prevent the military intervention in Chechnya, but affected the unpopularity of the first Chechen war), now they begin to instill in us the idea that «everything was done correctly» and therefore «we can repeat it».
By the way, the supposedly oppositional liberal media also indirectly contribute to this Kremlin propaganda. For example, Novaya Gazeta published an interview with Vasily Kravtsov, who was presented as an «expert on intra-Afghan crisis issues» and an «expert on radical Islamic groups and the zone of Pashtun tribes,» but who seemed to us to be just an ordinary old senile man. Why? Yes, because this «expert» promises Russian readers the following: «I have been saying for months that after the Taliban’s victory, after their victory parade in Kabul’s central square, a coalition government will indeed be formed. But it will be composed mainly of representatives of the Peshawar Shura, the Quetta Shura, al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Khorasan Province. This will be the coalition, whether anyone likes it or not.
There is no need to explain why such a «coalition government» is possible only in a demented mind. It is obvious to anyone familiar with the ideology and methodology of these groups. But the same kind of nonsense has been fed to Russian readers and viewers about Syria, presenting the situation in such a way that everyone fighting against Assad is either ISIS or acting in cooperation with it.
It is clear what conclusions can be drawn from such propaganda — if such a «coalition government» comes to power in Afghanistan, there will be no alternative to war against it. Therefore, both Vesti and Novaya Gazeta are essentially telling the Russian public the same thing in this matter.
Meanwhile, in addition to Russia, the Taliban also visited Iran and welcomed China’s possible participation in the post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan. China and Iran, along with Russia, are the main participants in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). They will now have to either reformulate the SCO to accommodate a Taliban-led Afghanistan or jointly oppose it, which China and Iran are not currently interested in doing. Alternatively, Putin’s Russia could decide to do this on its own within the CSTO, pushing out its last regional partners.
* Banned in Russia