Why Russia still classifies the Taliban as a terrorist organization after suspending its ban on the group
1.
What happened?
2.
Wait, didn’t the Russian authorities stop treating the Taliban as a banned organization?
3.
I see. So the FSB’s collection was just out of date by the time it was published!
4.
This is confusing… Didn’t the FSB remove the Taliban from its terrorist list in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling?
5.
But surely the second ruling overturns the first one entirely!
6.
So technically, the Taliban is a terrorist organization that’s legal in Russia?
7.
Is that also why the Taliban remains on Rosfinmonitoring’s list?
What happened?
We found that in March 2026, the National Antiterrorism Committee published “Collected Information on the Activities of Organizations Designated as Terrorist in the Russian Federation.” Staff at the FSB Research Center prepared it “to inform the public about the crimes” committed by these groups.
The collection covers every terrorist organization added to the FSB’s list by the summer of 2024, including the Taliban movement.
The Taliban also remains on the list of extremists and terrorists maintained by Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence agency. In the latest version, dated October 23, it appears alongside other movements designated as criminal in Russia:
144. TAGANROG REPUBLIC MOVEMENT* , ;
145. TALIBAN MOVEMENT* , ;
146. TVER LAND MOVEMENT* (TVER PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC; TVER REPUBLIC)
Wait, didn’t the Russian authorities stop treating the Taliban as a banned organization?
That’s right. On April 17, 2025, Russia’s Supreme Court granted a request from the Prosecutor General’s Office to suspend the ban on the Taliban’s activities.
This procedure was added to Russia’s Federal Law on Countering Terrorism only in January of that year. And it was devised specifically for the Taliban!
I see. So the FSB’s collection was just out of date by the time it was published!
No. The collection already mentions the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Taliban; it even specifies that the ruling took effect on May 20, 2025.
Yet the authors continue to call the Taliban movement an international terrorist organization. In the relevant sections, they describe its ideological tenets, propaganda tools, and criminal activities. Here’s how the security service’s experts describe the movement’s main goals and objectives:
The goals are to overthrow secular rule in Afghanistan and establish a state governed by Sharia law. This goal was largely achieved after the movement came to power in 2023. As the fundamentalist state consolidates its position in Afghanistan, efforts are being made to establish relations with foreign countries, including the Russian Federation.
Read more
Five years under the Taliban: Meduza reports from Afghanistan, where a war on drugs and greater security have come with mass poverty, unemployment, and the loss of women’s rights
In Russia, even death isn’t enough to get you off the terrorist watchlist. Around 100 dead people remain on the registry — including Alexey Navalny.
This is confusing… Didn’t the FSB remove the Taliban from its terrorist list in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling?
No! The Taliban remains on the unified federal list of terrorist organizations maintained by the security service. Its entry now mentions both Supreme Court rulings: the one banning its activities in 2003 and the one suspending that ban 22 years later.
Entry No.
Organization name
Court that issued the ruling (judgment), date of the ruling (judgment) and case number (if any), date the ruling (judgment) took legal effect
11
“Taliban Movement”
Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, February 14, 2003, No. GKPI 03-116, took effect March 4, 2003
Ban on activities suspended. Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, April 17, 2025, No. AKPI25-174s, took effect May 20, 2025
But surely the second ruling overturns the first one entirely!
That’s not the case either. The Russian Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling had two parts:
- Designating the Taliban movement and more than a dozen other groups as terrorist organizations
- Banning their activities in Russia
On the basis of the foregoing and pursuant to Articles 194, 195, and 198 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
rules:
The application of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation is granted. The following organizations are designated as terrorist organizations: “Supreme Military Majlis al-Shura of the United Mujahideen Forces of the Caucasus,” “Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan,” “The Base” (“Al-Qaeda”), “Asbat al-Ansar,” “Holy War” (“Al-Jihad” or “Egyptian Islamic Jihad”), “Islamic Group” (“Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya”), “Muslim Brotherhood” (“Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun”), “Islamic Liberation Party” (“Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami”), “Lashkar-e-Taiba,” “Islamic Group” (“Jamaat-e-Islami”), ”Taliban Movement,” “Islamic Party of Turkestan” (formerly the “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan”), “Social Reform Society” (“Jamiyat al-Islah al-Ijtimai”), “Revival of Islamic Heritage Society” (“Jamiyat Ihya al-Turath al-Islami”), and “House of the Two Saints” (“Al-Haramain”). Their activities in the Russian Federation are banned.
The 2025 ruling could address only the second part. And it doesn’t lift the ban — it merely suspends it. In effect, the suspension is temporary, and the law allows the Russian authorities to change their minds at any time. They wouldn’t need to add the Taliban to the terrorist list again. They would only need to revoke the court-ordered suspension.
So technically, the Taliban is a terrorist organization that’s legal in Russia?
Yes. It’s the first and so far the only organization with this status.
Russian authorities concluded that the movement had renounced terrorism, and they legalized it. Yet they still formally consider the Taliban a terrorist organization. The 2025 amendments also specifically stated that suspending the ban would not trigger a review of past criminal cases involving the Taliban.
Is that also why the Taliban remains on Rosfinmonitoring’s list?
No, it should have been removed from that list long ago. In 2025, suspending a ban became one of the grounds for removing an organization from the list of extremists and terrorists. We don’t know why that still hasn’t happened. But Rosfinmonitoring is sometimes slow to remove people from the list even after they die.
Because the Taliban is still on the list, Russian banks, for example, remain prohibited from doing business with it.
The law on combating terrorist financing does allow the movement to apply to have itself removed from the list. Rosfinmonitoring would then have two weeks to remove it or explain its refusal. We don’t know whether the Taliban has tried to use this procedure.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at reports@meduza.io.
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.
Who exactly?
The collection itself does not name its authors. But the published file’s metadata identifies its creator as Viktor Arkadyevich Boshuk and its last editor as A.E. Yevtyagin. In 2006, Boshuk defended a dissertation for a candidate of sciences degree, the Russian equivalent of a Ph.D., titled “The Theoretical Foundations of Russia’s Criminal Law Policy on State Security.” Incidentally, the “SPecialiST RePack” tag preserved in the metadata suggests that a pirated version of Microsoft Office was used to prepare the collection.
What is it?
It is an interagency government body that coordinates counterterrorism efforts and develops proposals for the Russian president.