Putin’s search for allies has reached a new low. Russia has signed a military cooperation agreement with the Taliban, a group it once fought and condemned. Is this a meaningful strategic partnership, or a desperate political stunt designed to challenge the West? In this video, we break down what’s really behind the Russia-Taliban deal, what each side hopes to gain, and why it may reveal just how far Moscow’s global influence has fallen.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Really, Putin. The Taliban. That's who Russia has chosen as its next strategic partner.
00:06We're not even going to tease this one because Putin's latest decision is so ludicrous that
00:10it's almost unbelievable. But it's true. This is desperation manifested. First it was North Korea,
00:17now it's the Taliban. Just how much lower can Russia go as Putin desperately scrapes through
00:22the bottom of the barrel and into the dirt as it looks for allies? Okay, so let's look at the
00:26deal.
00:27On May 28th, Politico reported that Russia and Afghanistan have signed a military cooperation
00:32agreement, which was drafted about a year after Russia became one of the first few nations to
00:36recognize the supposed legitimacy of the Taliban government that installed itself in the country.
00:41The Taliban is no longer a terrorist group, Russia claims. It operates a real government,
00:45and one with which Russia wants to build closer ties. How close is the question? Though both
00:51Russia and the Taliban have been quick to reveal that a deal exists, neither is saying much about
00:55what it actually means. Even at the international security forum in Moscow, the Afghan defense
01:00minister, Mohamed Yakoub, kept things as vague as possible. Interaction with Russia is important
01:06for us. Afghanistan and Russia have had long-standing and historic relations. We want to move forward
01:11in this direction, Yakoub said in a complete non-statement. Russia's Security Council secretary,
01:16Sergei Shoigu, didn't offer much more, stating,
01:19We are convinced that Western countries must unfreeze frozen Afghanistan assets, fully acknowledge
01:24their full responsibility for the 20-year presence in Afghanistan, and assume the entire burden of
01:29the post-conflict reconstruction of the country. So we have something of a reason for all of this.
01:34Russia wants to take a shot at the West. But as for the deal itself, all that we really know
01:38is
01:38that it's some sort of military-technical cooperation agreement, and that neither side has released the
01:43text of the document that they have signed. Without that text, it's difficult to gauge just how deep
01:48this new deal goes, though we can speculate. Typically, a military-technical agreement can
01:53cover a range of activities, up to and including the transfer of weapons, logistical support,
01:58troop training, and other types of assistance. But that in itself is a bit of a problem.
02:02It's not like Russia's coffers are overflowing right now. Russia's economy is in crisis mode to the
02:07point where Swedish intelligence reports that the country has been faking its economic data to appear
02:12more economically powerful than it really is. A larger budget deficit and higher inflation than
02:17claimed is what the Swedes say Russia is dealing with, so it's not like Russia has the money to
02:21support the Taliban. It also can't provide weapons to strengthen Afghanistan's regime, as Putin needs
02:27those weapons for his failing campaign in Ukraine. So what is this really all about for Russia?
02:31Putin wants this to be a political signal to the West, and we see that in Shoigu's statement.
02:37Ruslan Suleimanov, who is an expert with the NEST Center, tells Russian independent outlet the
02:41insider that any sort of serious military cooperation is likely off the table. Rather,
02:46this is a symbolic measure to show that Moscow isn't abandoning the Taliban alone, that this
02:51cooperation isn't just words, but deeds. But in reality, there definitely won't be any kind of
02:55military alliance or coalition like with North Korea, Suleimanov claims. The Independent reports
03:00something similar, noting that Shoigu claimed that Russia believes that the creation of US and NATO
03:05military structures and facilities in Afghanistan or neighboring states is unacceptable, which implies that
03:11Russia is trying to position itself as a nation that stands up for the little guy against the big
03:15bad Western powers. What else is new, eh Putin? It's just that this time, the little guy is a
03:20terroristic regime that has kicked Russia's rear in the past. Putin is making his bed with fleas,
03:25and he's happily lying in it. Russia has to be getting something more than thinking that it's
03:29thumbing its nose at the West out of all of this. Whatever that something might be, it certainly isn't
03:34weapons. The Taliban doesn't have much of anything that it could send to Russia to help Putin in his war
03:38against Ukraine. As Global Firepower points out, the military that Taliban has created in Afghanistan
03:44relies almost exclusively on small arms. The Taliban doesn't have a navy, so it's not using warships to
03:49support Russia. Afghanistan has a grand total of five aircraft, amounting to a pair of transports and a
03:56trio of choppers, so air power is out. Tanks are also out. The Taliban has none of those. The same
04:01goes for
04:02artillery, Global Firepower says, meaning that all the Taliban might have to offer is meat and a handful of the
04:083,902 vehicles that its army possesses when it comes to conventional equipment. The Missile Defense
04:14Advocacy Alliance notes that the Taliban does have some access to missiles, though these are mostly
04:18Stingers, Scud B and SA-24 Igla S left over from the old Soviet and US campaigns in Afghanistan.
04:26RAND estimated that 4,500s of this type of equipment were left behind in those two conflicts, but the odds
04:31are high that much of it is either used, poorly maintained or too vital to the Taliban to be sent
04:36to Russia.
04:37The Taliban has also started to show signs that it's using drones for kamikaze attacks, but it seems
04:42unlikely that there is much that the group could do or provide for Russia on the drone front that
04:46Russia doesn't already have. Frankly, it's the Taliban that seems to be getting the better part
04:50of this deal. As Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty points out, just as Russia doesn't have much cash
04:56or equipment to send the Taliban's way, the Afghan regime hardly has a war chest that it can use to
05:00purchase anything from Russia. The 4.3% gross domestic product or GDP growth seen in Afghanistan
05:05in 2025 is illusory, as it was driven by citizens returning to the country from Pakistan and Iran.
05:11Over 2 million Afghans returning home meant that the nation's GDP projected declined by an estimated
05:174%, World Bank reports. But with this deal, the Taliban gained some legitimacy as a geopolitical entity.
05:24Not much. It's still the Taliban, and the group is on the terrorist list of most countries,
05:28but now it can claim to have Russia as an ally, not just in trade, but militarily.
05:32Coming back to Russia, there is at least some element of an attempt to preserve its strength
05:36in the Central Asian and Far Eastern sections of Russia. In particular, Russia is looking for a
05:41counterweight country to the Islamic State Khorasan, which claimed responsibility for a devastating
05:46terrorist attack at a concert venue in Moscow that claimed the lives of almost 150 people back in
05:52March 2024. That group is still active inside Russia, so it seems that the logic might be that Putin
05:58is cozying up to one group of terrorists to help him tackle another group. Plus, there's the influence
06:02factor. Now that the US has withdrawn from Afghanistan, Russia is trying to swoop into the region and pick
06:08up the pieces. Again, it all seems so meager. The only other possible reason why Russia might want to
06:14make a deal like this is that Putin believes he might be able to extract some manpower out of the
06:18Taliban that he can send to die on the front lines in Ukraine. He's done that before with other
06:22countries. North Korea sent up to 15,000 soldiers to Russia between the fall of 2024 and the end of
06:292025, the Council on Foreign Relations reports. However, the Taliban isn't much more powerful on the
06:34manpower front than it is on its embarrassing equipment front. Afghanistan has 75,000 active
06:40personnel in its military and another 90,000 paramilitary forces, most of which are needed to help the
06:45Taliban maintain its grip on power. That's how military-backed dictatorships work. You can't keep them
06:51going if you're sending your best fighters to go and die in another country. Plus, as Alexei Zakharov,
06:56who is a fellow with the India-based Observer Research Foundation, tells The Independent,
07:00the Taliban isn't overseeing a stable version of Afghanistan. The Taliban is currently struggling
07:05with rising instability in Afghan northern provinces and cannot fully protect the southern border with
07:10Pakistan, Zakharov notes, as he points out that Russia isn't likely to trade the sophisticated
07:15weapons it's sent to North Korea to convince the Taliban to send soldiers. So we come back to what this
07:20deal is really about. It can be summed up in one word. Desperation. Russia has signed a deal with
07:26the Taliban because it can't sign similar deals elsewhere. This is really a story about Putin's
07:30waning geopolitical influence and what it's doing to Russia, and we're going to explain precisely why
07:35soon. Before we do, this is why we make the military show. To explain how power really moves,
07:41or in this case, how it barely moves at all. If you're enjoying this video, make sure you subscribe
07:45so you catch what we have coming next. Let's start with the obvious. Russia has just run into the arms
07:51of an old enemy. Of course, changing geopolitical relationships are nothing new. Old enemies become
07:56friends and vice versa, often throughout the course of history. What we're seeing in this deal between
08:01Russia and the Taliban is a Russian president who wants to return his country to the glory days of
08:05the old Soviet Union by forming a relationship with an organization that the Soviet Union tried to
08:10destroy throughout the 1980s. The decade-long war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union cost
08:15Russia 15,000 soldiers. For any other nation, that would be a humiliation large enough to dissuade it
08:21from cutting a deal like the one Russia just made with the Taliban. But for Putin, 15,000 casualties is
08:26less than half of what Russia experiences in a month in Ukraine right now. So perhaps that makes it easier
08:32for him to let bygones be bygones. Still, they humiliated Russia in a way that wouldn't be topped
08:37until Putin's catastrophic campaign in Ukraine. The fact that Russia's leader is now so readily
08:42signing and touting defense deals with this particular group is a sign of just how far
08:46Russia has fallen in the geopolitical landscape. Right now, Russia is basically saying yes to any
08:51government, no matter how tenuous that will take it. North Korea was bad enough. The cooperative
08:56defense treaty that Russia signed with North Korea back in 2024 left people wondering just how deep
09:02into the barrel Putin would look for allies. Kim Jong-un and his isolated government repaid
09:06Russia for the technology and cash it sent with the soldiers we mentioned earlier.
09:10But Putin established himself as a man who'll make a deal with the devil if it means that there's a
09:14better chance of him winning his war in Ukraine. But at least North Korea could provide something.
09:20Soldiers, rockets, and military equipment have all come from Pyongyang both before and after the 2024
09:25deal was signed. Even as recently as December 2025, Kim Jong-un confirmed that North Korean troops were
09:32still operating in Russia, where they're apparently being tasked with clearing mines in the
09:36Kursk region. But Russia isn't going to get anything like that from the Taliban. There is no
09:41real quid pro quo here, no exchange of money and tech for troops and equipment. Just a deal that
09:46tells us that Putin recognizes that he has nowhere left to turn. This isn't really about sticking it
09:51to the US, and it certainly isn't about the Taliban helping Russia to defeat Ukraine. What we see in
09:56this deal is the last dying gasp of a Russian leader who has seen his global influence collapse from
10:01under him. The last few years haven't been kind to Putin when it comes to his desire to create a
10:06new
10:06world order with Russia at the center. Whenever Putin supports a regime these days, that regime
10:11seems to collapse. We saw it in Syria towards the end of 2024. The fall of the Assad regime led
10:17to
10:17Russia losing a ton of prestige, as the weapons and support that Moscow had provided to that regime
10:22did the sum total of nothing to stop a rebellion that eventually led to Bashar al-Assad running for his
10:28life. In Venezuela, Putin was making an ally out of dictator Nicolas Maduro. Russian relations with
10:34Venezuela reached new heights following the invasion of Ukraine, the Center for European
10:38Policy Analysis notes, even leading to the signing of a decade-long partnership agreement. All of that
10:43collapsed into dust when the US extracted Maduro from the country he ruled, leaving Putin without a
10:49key ally in South America. And after Operation Epic Fury claimed the life of former Iranian Supreme Leader
10:55Ali Khamenei within the first 24 hours, Putin must have been left wondering where he could turn next.
11:01All of Russia's allies were being taken out of the equation. That leaves Putin with North Korea and
11:07now the Taliban in Afghanistan. That's hardly a murderer's row of geopolitical influence, no matter
11:12how hard Russia tries to claim that it is. Putin's lack of global leverage had already been exposed.
11:18Now the gaping wound of Russia's failure is on full display for the entire world to see
11:23as Russia inks a deal with the Taliban. And as Putin has proven in all of the instances of his
11:28alliance's collapsing, Russia seems to be able to do nothing about its failing influence beyond
11:33spouting rhetoric. There have been no real attempts to restore regimes that are friendly to Russia in
11:38Syria, Venezuela or Iran. Russia simply doesn't have that kind of clout anymore. A fragmenting regional
11:44order can now only be bolstered by getting into bed with the types of regimes that have opposed Russia
11:49in the past. That isn't diplomacy. It's the desperation of a leader who knows that the clock
11:54is ticking on his reign. But what about China, you might ask? That's a major ally on which Putin can
12:00hang his hat. Well, sort of. It's certainly true that China has provided Russia with dual-use components
12:06that often find their way into weapons and drones that Russia uses in Ukraine. It's also true that China
12:11is the world's largest buyer of Russian oil, which keeps money pouring into Putin's war chest.
12:15But Xi Jinping isn't the ally that Putin wants him to be. China hasn't signed anything like the
12:20defense deals with Russia that are now being signed with the Taliban. And it's not like Putin can just
12:25snap his fingers and get what he needs from China. We saw that during the diplomatic visit that Putin
12:29made to Beijing in May. While that visit led to the signing of over 20 agreements on tech and trade,
12:35the BBC reports, it also ended without any signs of the gas pipeline that Putin wants to link Russia and
12:40China, coming any closer to being achieved. The reality that Putin has to accept is that
12:45China doesn't really see Russia as an ally. Beijing views Moscow as a tool that can be used for cheap
12:51oil and geopolitical wrangling. Tools are discarded when they're no longer of any use. Putin knows that
12:57Xi holds all of the power in Russia's relationship with China, and Xi could very easily pull the plug
13:02without any real ill effects if Putin does something to anger him. That entire relationship is on China's
13:08terms, as Russia makes up just 4% of China's international trade, despite Beijing being
13:13absolutely critical to Putin's plans. China can survive, and likely even thrive, without Russia.
13:20The same can't be said the other way round. The best that Russia has among the major players is a
13:24one-sided relationship and a bunch of leadership collapses, hence the deal with the Taliban. If it
13:30wasn't humiliating enough for Putin that he has been forced to dive so deep to find an ally, Russia's latest
13:36deal also comes as Ukraine is turning itself into a power player in the Middle East. As Russia tries
13:41to make moves to protect itself in Central Asia, Ukraine is signing decade-long defense deals with
13:46the likes of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. And Ukraine is actually getting
13:51something out of those deals. The Gulf nations that have found themselves under attack by the same
13:55types of Shahid drones that Russia is using against Ukraine are trading oil, cash, and perhaps even
14:00military equipment for Ukraine's expertise in dealing with those drones. This contrast shows you just
14:06how far Russia is falling in the global pecking order. Putin signs deals that deliver nothing to
14:11Russia, just so that he can get an ally that nobody else wants. Ukraine is signing deals where it's an
14:16equal partner that is being recognized for its ability to help major nations protect themselves.
14:21These two things are not the same. All that Russia's deal with the Taliban does is deliver the sum
14:26total of nothing to Russia while allowing the Taliban to crow about how it runs a legitimate government.
14:31Putin is in a weaker position than he has ever been before, the European Union's foreign policy
14:36head Kaya Kalas said on May 11th, and he's just proved it with this deal. Russia is begging for
14:41scraps from the geopolitical table while Ukraine has taken a seat that it was never supposed to take.
14:46The Taliban are not a serious partner for Russia. They are simply a sign that Russia has fallen so far
14:52that it may never be able to clamber up again. And we know for sure that the Taliban isn't going
14:56to be able to do anything to help Russia reverse the course that it's on in Ukraine right now.
15:00While Putin signs deals with isolated regimes, Ukraine is doing a little isolating of its own.
15:06Only that isolation is happening in occupied Crimea. Russia's vital land bridge to the Crimean
15:11Peninsula has been cut off, leaving 1.5 million Russians searching for help from their weakened leader.
15:16This is all part of Ukraine's plan to retake Crimea, and you can find out why if you watch our
15:22video.
15:23And if you enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to The Military Show so you can see
15:26more of our coverage of the latest developments in geopolitics. And thank you as always for watching.
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