Russia, in a major snub, did not invite the U.S. to a major peace conference in Moscow, centered on how to solve the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan.
This week’s conference in Moscow will gather Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, India, and Iran for talks. Russia did not invite the U.S. or any NATO representatives despite the nearly 12,000 NATO troops inside the country. The peace conference represents a concerted Russian effort to compromise the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
Commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. John Nicholson, told Congress Thursday that Russia and Iran are trying to “undermine” the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Nicholson also said that Russia is trying to “publicly legitimize” the Taliban terrorist movement.
“Their [Russia’s] narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government,” Nicholson told reporters in a December Pentagon briefing. He continued, “This public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact, but it is used as a way to essentially undermine the Afghan government and the NATO effort and bolster the belligerents.”
Moscow’s cooperation with the Taliban is conducted under the guise of conducting counter-terrorism operations against the Islamic State. ISIS has a budding presence in Afghanistan and has historically clashed with the Taliban.
“I have already said earlier that we and the Taliban have channels for exchanging information,” a high Russian official told the Washington Post in 2015.
Moscow’s strategy in Afghanistan is part of a global campaign to reassert itself in gaps the U.S. finds itself in. Russia’s most high-profile intervention in recent years is in Syria, where it actively supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Russia’s 2015 military action likely saved the Assad regime, and it is now leading the peace process for the Syrian civil war.
The peace process includes U.S. allies and adversaries, Turkey and Iran. If Moscow is able to broker an international peace agreement in Syria, it will be a major diplomatic coup and solidify it as a major player in the region.
In Libya, Moscow has made it a point to invite Gen. Khalifa Haftar, twice. Haftar is waging a campaign against the United Nations-backed government in western Libya, which is officially supported by the U.S. Libya descended into civil war and chaos after a NATO-backed intervention in 2011 that toppled then Col. Moahmar Gadaffi.
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