What appears to be a nascent Pakistani infowar on Russia over its ties with the Taliban, which was elaborated upon here and builds upon their polar opposite views on Afghanistan that were covered here, has prompted concern from observers about what’s really behind this trend. One possibility is that it’s meant to justify Pakistan’s arming of Ukraine “in revenge”. Pakistan might either truly believe that Russia first armed the Taliban against it or is (maybe already has been?) convinced of this by the US.
However it might unfold, it would heighten Russia’s threat perception of Pakistan, the consequence of which will be forecast after first briefing the reader about Russia’s existing threat perception of Pakistan. This can be discerned from the article that Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu published in a leading publicly financed newspaper last August, what he and Defense Secretary Andrey Belousov separately told the SCO in May, and what Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in July.
In the aforesaid order, the Shoigu warned about the flow of terrorists into Afghanistan and the possible return of Western military infrastructure to the region, he and Belousov reaffirmed the second point, and Lavrov warned that Ukraine is sending arms and ammo to ISIS-K in Afghanistan. Lavrov also reaffirmed what Shoigu and Belousov separately told the SCO in May during his recent remarks at the latest Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan earlier this week.
The heavily implied innuendo is that arms, ammo, and ISIS-K terrorists could only realistically enter Afghanistan from Pakistan. Likewise, western military infrastructure could only return to the region from Pakistan too, whether the US formally redeploys there one day (perhaps in pursuit of Trump’s repeatedly declared goal of returning US troops to Kabul’s Bagram Airbase) or transits its airspace to go even deeper. Despite this threat perception, Russia remains cordial with Pakistan, hoping for the best.
If Pakistan declared that it’ll arm Ukraine or indisputable evidence emerged that it was quietly doing so, however, then Russia would likely reconceptualize the Afghan-Pakistani War as a means of tightening the southern flank of the US’ “cordon sanitaire” around Russia. This emerging Eurasian-wide network runs from the Swedish-led Viking Bloc in the Arctic-Baltic, Germany and Poland in Central Europe, Turkiye’s Neo-Ottoman ambitions in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and Japan in Northeast Asia.
Accordingly, if Pakistan armed Ukraine, then Russia might fear that Pakistan’s possible subordination of Afghanistan could enable this “Major Non-NATO Ally” and Turkish ally to turn the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan (PAKAFUZ) railway into a Pakistani-led dual-use NATO military logistics corridor to Central Asia. This north-south corridor would then complement the Turkish-led east-west one known as the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” (TRIPP), which was announced in August 2025.
Suffice to say, while Russia failed to prevent TRIPP from fulfilling this role due to Armenia’s defection, it might still believe that it could prevent PAKAFUZ from complementing it by helping to avert Afghanistan’s subordination to Pakistan. This could lead to presently unsubstantiated reports about Russia arming the Taliban, let alone with the intent of its equipment being used against Pakistan, becoming a fait accompli. The only one who’d benefit from violently dividing-and-ruling Russia and Pakistan like this is the US.
