Russia Pulls Back From Cooperating With U.S. on Afghanistan, report

KABUL, Afghanistan — For all the conflicts in the world in which Washington is at odds with Moscow, the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan has been one area where the Obama administration’s interests and Russia’s concerns coincide.

Disputes over the wars in Ukraine and Syria had not stopped the governments from cooperating on counternarcotics and securing military supply lines. But after initial success on those fronts, Russia now seems to be disengaging with both the United States and the American-backed Afghan government.

On an old Cold War battlefield where Russia fought a nearly decade-long war against United States-supplied fighters, Moscow has a new strategy: the cold shoulder.

“We won’t join the useless events, and we’ve already told the Americans,” President Vladimir V. Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir N. Kabulov, told Russian state news media this month. Russia, he said, would sit out any talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Kabul, backed by the United States, Pakistan and China.

“Honestly speaking, we’re already tired of joining anything Washington starts,” Mr. Kabulov said. The Kremlin, he added, “has no desire to participate in what the Americans organize ‘on the fly’ just for their own pre-election interests and where they give us the role of extras on the set.”

The government of Mr. Putin has instead decided to address on its own what it sees as the immediate security threat from the chaos in Afghanistan and the emergence there of militantsother than the Taliban, especially those from the Islamic State.

Russia has reinforced its largest foreign military base in Tajikistan, along the border with Afghanistan, and the Russian military has held regular exercises with Tajik soldiers. The Kremlin has committed $1.2 billion to train and equip the Tajik Army, forming a new bulwark in Central Asia north of Afghanistan.

Mr. Kabulov also recently disclosed that Russia had opened direct channels to the Taliban to exchange information about militants in northern Afghanistan allied with the Islamic State. (The Taliban have denied being in touch with Moscow.)

Afghan officials worry that a breakdown of consensus among the international powers with an interest in Afghanistan, and the establishment of direct contacts with those governments and the insurgent Taliban, would undermine the government in Kabul. - Read More at the nytimes

Russia Pulls Back From Cooperating With U.S. on Afghanistan

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