Russia ratchets up aggression

The disclosure that Russia is actively supporting the Taliban by supplying it with weapons to undermine US and NATO efforts to stabilise Afghanistan adds to serious concerns about Vladimir Putin’s drive to challenge Western influence across the world. In a BBC interview, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, said Russian weapons for the Taliban were being smuggled from Tajikistan. He accused Moscow of deliberately exaggerating Islamic State numbers in Afghanistan to justify its backing for the Taliban — a successor, ironically, of Moscow’s deadly enemy in the mujaheddin war of the 1980s.

Russia’s actions, undertaken in concert with its ally Iran, appear designed to irritate the US. They are also calculated to annoy US allies such as Australia, which  have expended tireless efforts since 2001 in fighting the Taliban insurgency. According to the BBC, new links between the Taliban and Moscow have raised Taliban expectations of “sophisticated weapons from Russia that could dramatically turn the Afghan war” in its favour.

In another dangerous development this week, Russia fired missiles into the Baltic Sea in a show of force, a day after leaders of the Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia met Donald Trump in Washington. As this was happening Mr Putin was in Ankara holding a summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s President Hassan Rowhani about the future of Syria. Furore continues over the use of the Russian chemical weapon novichok against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in England.

The challenges to the West posed by Mr Putin underline the need for strong leadership in the White House and across the free world. Allowing Moscow to help the Taliban undo all the good work by the US and its allies, including Australia, since 2001 would be a travesty.

Even amid the Skripal furore, Mr Trump has been slow to condemn Mr Putin. With tens of thousands of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan vulnerable to attack, Russia’s support for the Taliban should show Mr Trump that Mr Putin is no friend.