city of Kunduz.



Russia enters the Syrian war, propping up the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.



Russia gives Tajikistan a gift of more than $1 billion worth of military hardware. 2017

The United States drops the “mother of all bombs” on Islamic State caves in eastern Afghanistan.



Russia holds its first snap military exercises with Tajikistan on the border with Afghanistan.

Around the time Kabulov’s effort was coming together, U.S. intelligence officials began to flag increasing reports of the Taliban receiving arms or funding from the Russian government. Russian officials have routinely denied those allegations, and some have blamed the United States for the Islamic State’s rise in Afghanistan.

“ISIS is growing for the most part thanks to the American special services in Afghanistan,” said Frantz Klintsevich, a member of the upper housein which an unidentified aircraft bombed militants in northern Afghanistan in August. Both countries denied the charge.

In 1989, Soviet soldiers were seen handing out flour to civilians in Kabul, where the decade-long Soviet-Afghan war had placed many at risk of starvation.

‘Weird flirtation’ with Taliban

Even as Russia was planning a new diplomatic drive with the United States and other countries in 2014, U.S. officials began to see increased intelligence reporting of what former officials described as Russia’s “weird flirtation” with elements of the Taliban, primarily in northern Afghanistan, where Moscow had deep ties to Tajik and Uzbek groups.

The goal, officials and analysts say, has been to strengthen elements battling the Islamic State and ensure that if a Taliban takeover were to occur, Russia would have an established line to