History is subject to strange twists and turns. One such is the decision by Russia to recognise the Afghan Taliban regime, the first and only country so far to do so.

One hardly needs reminding of Russian sensitivity on the issue, given that the Afghan Taliban emerged from the womb of the Mujahideen who fought the Soviet occupation with the help of Pakistan and the US-led west for a decade, following which Russia (then the Soviet Union) finally decided to call it a day and withdrew in 1989 after Gorbachev assumed the leadership in Moscow.

Arguably, that defeat, or rather being fought to a stalemate, fed into the troubled waters afflicting the Soviet Union and its ultimate collapse. The intriguing question is, why has Russia, given this painful past, ‘jumped the gun’ in this regard before China, India or even Pakistan?**

For one, Russia is seeking to expand its diplomatic footprint globally, including south west Asia, in order to reverse the isolation into which the US-led west has been trying to push it since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Its decision to formally exchange ambassadors therefore smacks of realpolitik, strategic opportunism, and positioning........

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