Neither Russia’s nor Pakistan’s media surrogates have thus far acknowledged that Russia is placing its own interests in Afghanistan above Pakistan’s despite how obvious and understandable this is.

The News International, one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers, published a piece by Amir Jahangir about “Moscow’s Afghan blind spot”. He’s a public policy expert and leads the Country Partner Institute of the World Economic Forum in Pakistan. Jahangir’s argument boils down to Russia’s embrace of Afghanistan, which he correctly identifies as driven by its dual opposition to ISIS-K and the return of Western military infrastructure, being against Pakistan’s interests since it doesn’t entail any strings regarding their dispute.

For background, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of backing Islamabad-designated terrorists, while Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of backing ISIS-K. Top Russian officials have hinted that some unclear ties exist between Pakistan and ISIS-K as documented here, but Russia won’t be the first to worsen ties, and it also expanded them with Turkiye despite Ankara’s ties with the initial ISIS. In any case, Jahangir believes that Russia should pressure Afghanistan to act against anti-Pakistan groups, not ignore the issue.

Russia officially recognizes that terrorist groups operate in Afghanistan, it’s just skeptical of claims that they’re backed by the Taliban, which Moscow believes could function as a bulwark against ISIS-K’s expansion into Central Asia by potentially arming Afghanistan against them. It also veritably opposes the return of Western military infrastructure to the region, but this could only realistically be facilitated by Pakistan, which has an indisputable track record of enabling the West’s military access to the region.

Preventing ISIS-K’s expansion into Central Asia and the return of Western military infrastructure to the region understandably take priority for Russia over Pakistan’s interests regarding the pressure that it wants Russia to place on Afghanistan to act against anti-Pakistan groups. Keeping the Taliban distant, eschewing arming them, and passively watching Pakistan potentially facilitate the return of Western military infrastructure to the region until the Taliban acts against anti-Pakistan groups is unrealistic.

Neither Russia’s nor Pakistan’s media surrogates acknowledge that Russia is placing its own interests in Afghanistan above Pakistan’s despite how obvious and understandable this is. That might be because their respective media ecosystems are influenced to a degree by their governments, even among many of those figures and platforms that claim to be independent, and they fear that such candidness could be misinterpreted by the other as unfriendly. The elephant in the room, however, must be addressed.

It’s for that reason why this response to Jahangir explicitly declares what both side’s media surrogates have thus far dodged, namely that Russia places its own interests in Afghanistan above Pakistan’s, but it doesn’t have any hostile intentions against Pakistan and won’t be the first to worsen bilateral ties. The Russian-Pakistani dispute over Afghanistan is unresolvable since each side naturally has polar opposite interests, therefore, ties might chill. They could still gradually expand, though, as suggested here.

The only variable that could offset the continued expansion of Russian-Pakistani relations in spite of their dispute over Afghanistan and Russia’s suspicions that Pakistan has some unclear ties with ISIS-K would be if Pakistan’s latest proxy war on Afghanistan destabilizes Central Asia as was warned about here. In that scenario, Russia and Pakistan might ultimately find themselves fighting another proxy war in Afghanistan, which was also warned about here. Hopefully Pakistan realizes that’s not in its interests.

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