Oleg Davigora23:04, 10.09.24

The statement was made against the background of how Russia recently demonstrated its readiness to arm the Houthis with anti-ship missiles and transfer the Pantsir-S1 medium-range air defense system to Hezbollah through Syria.

Against the background of warming relations between the regime and Russia, the Taliban announced their intention to build air defenses in Afghanistan with the help of Russian equipment .

And if in recent months, as it turned out, Moscow is ready to arm the Houthis in Yemen and even Hezbollah in Lebanon with modern missiles, it may not be so ready for the current ruling regime in Kabul, writes Forbes.

In early 2023, less than two years after re-conquering Afghanistan amid a chaotic US withdrawal, the Taliban allocated the largest share of Afghanistan’s defense budget, declaring their intention to build air defenses.

“Anti-aircraft missiles are a need of the country. There is no doubt that Afghanistan is trying and doing everything possible to get them,” said Taliban commander Qari Fasihuddin Fitrata and the army chief of staff.

On August 29, General Syed Abdul Basir Saberi, chief of logistics at the Taliban-controlled Afghan Ministry of Defense, was much more blunt.

“I think we need equipment for air defense and airspace control. We have ground equipment. I think we will buy [such products] from you at the international level, when the [international legal] conditions for this appear Saberi said.

It is noted that a few years ago it was impossible to imagine that the Taliban could make such a request. But Saberi’s statement was made during a period of warming relations, an example of which was Moscow’s invitation to the St. Petersburg Forum in May. Saberi’s comments suggest that the group hopes that warming relations could lead to the purchase of weapons.

The statement also came after Russia recently demonstrated its readiness to arm the Houthis with anti-ship missiles and transfer the Pantsir-S1 medium-range air defense system to Hezbollah through Syria.

The transfer of Armor to the Taliban, or short- and medium-range systems such as the Buk and Thor, would undoubtedly alarm the United States. After withdrawing troops in August 2021, the US killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in an “over-the-horizon” drone strike in central Kabul, where the Taliban were hosting him.

The advanced air defense system in Afghanistan may make it difficult to carry out similar operations using drones. In March, the Taliban said that American drones were patrolling and “violating” the country’s airspace.

There is also a serious risk that any air defenses Russia supplies to the group could endanger civilian aviation. Afghanistan’s airspace has become one of the main routes between Europe and Asia, and many airlines that previously avoided it for years have increased the number of flights over the country amid heightened tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Iran.

Pavlo Luzin, a senior researcher at the Democratic Stability Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, doubts that Russia will sell modern weapons to the Taliban in the near future, and calls Saberi’s interview a “sweet speech” for the Kremlin’s ears.

“The Taliban would like to get several air defense systems, but they are not ready to buy them yet,” Luzin emphasized. “Despite the fact that Russia has many years of experience in supplying weapons for nothing, wishful thinking is being taken here,” he added.

“Russia is a global troublemaker that openly and officially declares its goals of undermining the global leadership of the United States and the entire world order,” the expert believes.

As part of these declared goals, Luzin explained, Russia is demonstrating its willingness to deal with “any kind of global criminal network,” from North Korea and the Taliban to the Houthis and warlords in Africa.

On the other hand, he noted that Russia cannot export sophisticated conventional weapons, such as Armor and Tor systems, because it has lost so much equipment in Ukraine, and the Russian military industry is barely making up for the heavy losses.

“Furthermore, any air defense deal would not be about Russia simply putting in a system off the shelf. The only possible way to deliver Buk, Tor, or Panzer air defense systems to Afghanistan is to deliver them with crews Luzin says. “The Taliban are not very well trained in dealing with these systems,” he concluded.

(C)UNIAN 2024