Move paves the way for Moscow to normalise ties with leadership of Afghanistan
Russia has suspended its ban on the Taliban, which it had designated for more than two decades as a terrorist organisation, in a move that paves the way for Moscow to normalise ties with the leadership of Afghanistan.
No country currently recognises the Taliban government that seized power in August 2021 as US-led forces staged a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war. But Russia has been gradually building ties with the movement, which Vladimir Putin said last year was now an ally in fighting terrorism.
The Taliban was outlawed by Russia as a terrorist movement in 2003. State media said the supreme court lifted the ban on Thursday with immediate effect.
This is a braindead take. The word “empire” has a lot of cultural baggage with Russian nationalism and it is totally different than say “the Spanish Empire” or “The British Empire” because when Russians say “The Russian Empire” it is specifically referring to an idea within Russian nationalism that Russia is the successor state to Rome and all of the cultural and religious ideas that come with that. The idea is that Moscow is the “Third Rome” with the first being, well, Rome, the second being Constantinople, and after the fall of Constantinople, it went to Moscow because of the unique connection of the Rus’ with the Byzantine empire and Eastern Christianity. To use the term “Russian Empire” would be a huge boost to Russian nationalists and accomplish nothing substantial for anyone else.