Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned in mid-July in his address to participants of a regional meeting on stopping the flow of weapons to terrorists in Central Asia that Western arms and ammo from Ukraine are being sent to ISIS-K in Afghanistan. According to him, “The growing capabilities of terrorist organisations are also facilitated by their almost unrestricted access to the latest high-tech weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles and other military and dual-use products supplied from conflict zones.”
He then declared that, “Thus, weapons and ammunition provided by Western countries to the neo-Nazi Kiev regime are finding their way into the hands of terrorists and extremists.” Lavrov didn’t say how these arms and ammo are entering Afghanistan, but by process of elimination, it’s almost certainly via Pakistan since it’s unrealistic that the Central Asian Republics, China, and Iran are the transit states. The same goes for Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu’s warning about foreign terrorists in Afghanistan.
This was conveyed in an article that he published last August in which he wrote that “The situation is aggravated by the recorded facts of the transfer of militants from other regions of the world to Afghanistan. There is reason to believe that behind these actions are the special services of a number of Western countries, which continue to hatch plans to destabilize the region, to create chronic centers of instability near Russia, China and Iran by means of extremist groups hostile to the Taliban.”
His article was analyzed here at the time as implying that Pakistan is the transit state. That piece was also referenced here in mid-May after Shoigu and Defense Minister Andrey Belousov warned at separate events about the West’s desire to return its military infrastructure to the region. It was concluded that this could only realistically be achieved with Pakistani assistance and that all three warnings hint at Russia’s latest threat perception of Pakistan that nevertheless hasn’t derailed their rapid rapprochement.
Returning to Lavrov’s relevant warning, which implies at minimum a passive role by Pakistan in facilitating the shipment of Western arms and ammo from Ukraine to ISIS-K in Afghanistan, this would essentially be the reverse flow of what was reported by The Intercept in late 2023. They cited leaked documents to inform their audience that Pakistan secretly armed Ukraine in exchange for the US’ support in obtaining an IMF bailout. This helped Ukraine keep pace in its “war of attrition” with Russia.
Now that the Western military-industrial complex ramped up production and can sustain arming Ukraine on its own without third-country assistance, some of the arms and ammo that they send to there can now be funneled to ISIS-K in Afghanistan via Pakistan, provided that the reports are true. Lavrov has no reason to lie, however, so observers should assume that he’s telling the truth. It’s therefore almost certainly the case that these arms and ammo reach ISIS-K in Afghanistan through Pakistan.
As was assessed here in June after the Taliban repeated their claim that Pakistan hosts ISIS-K camps, “If it’s determined with a high degree of confidence that Pakistan is in bed with ISIS-K as part of a Western plot to destabilize Afghanistan and Russia’s soft Central Asian underbelly, then security considerations could take precedence over political and economic ones to reshape Russian-Pakistani ties.” That hasn’t yet happened, but ever so gradually, Russia seems to be moving in this direction.
