Taliban Officers Feel a Russian Defeat in Ukraine Would Allow Them to Intervene Successfully in Tajikistan

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 3 – Andrey Serenko, a specialist at the Moscow Center for the Study of Contemporary Afghanistan, says that Taliban commanders believe that “favorable conditions” for their intervention in Tajikistan’s restive Badakhshan region and Central Asia more generally would arise if Russia suffers a military failure in Ukraine.

            He presented this conclusion on his telegram channel and it has now been picked up by other Central Asian portals and by Russia’s Rosbalt news agency (t.me/anserenko/3697, inozpress.kg/a-serenko-Командиры-талибов-в-афганском-Бада/ and rosbalt.ru/world/2022/03/03/1946789.html).

            According to Serenko, the Taliban believe that in the event of a military defeat in Ukraine, Moscow would be reluctant to get involved militarily anywhere else for a time and that this would give them the chance to move northward into Central Asia with the Badakhshan being their first target.

            It is not clear whether his argument is nothing more than an extension of what many have suggested in the past or an effort to convince those who support Ukraine that they may have more to lose than gain by doing so; but it is certainly plausible given that there are Pamiri communities on both sides of the Tajikistan-Afghan frontier.

            At the very least, what Serenko is saying likely does reflect what some Taliban commanders do think, although it is far from certain that the Taliban government in Kabul would support such a move given the presence in Tajikistan of a Russian military base and two Chinese military facilities.