Acting on the saying that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Russian President Vladimir Putin is turning to the Taliban to stop the growing presence of Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Afghanistan who could eventually pose a threat to Russia.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova disclosed the development, stressing that the intel sharing with the Taliban is limited only to details about ISIS.
Russian troops fought against the Taliban during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989.
"This is not going to mean any sort of real rapprochement with the Taliban, but simply another shift of focus toward ISIS," Zakharova said, according to CNN.
The report on intel sharing was, however, denied by the Taliban in a statement issued Friday.
"The Taliban does not need any help in the fight against ISIS but we have the right to request assistance from other nations,'' according to the statement, the report said.
Reacting to reports, analysts say Putin's attempt to share information with the Taliban will place the Russian leader in a "risky spot.''
Putin has been boldly extending his reach with aggressive moves in Syria and Ukraine, according to reports.
Others believe that the Russian leader's move was particularly intended for the thousands of jihadis from Russia's Caucasus region and the former Soviet republics who are joining the fight with ISIS in Syria.
"He may be trying to cut off the pipeline of fighters closer to home, in Afghanistan,'' one expert told CNN.
"The ties between ISIS and the insurgency in the north Caucasus... means that Russia does see ISIS and a lot of the other Islamist groups as a particular threat, in a way that maybe the Taliban isn't," said Olga Olike of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "So the Russians may think they (the Taliban) are the lesser of the available evils."
Critics also say that Putin's moves are all about projecting relevance and strength.
"He wants to go back to the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and the United States were equals as geopolitical leaders, as Cold War rivals, but they still sat down and they did deals," said Matthew Rojansky of the Woodrow Wilson Center.
ISIS is gaining strength in Afghanistan with as many as 3,000 fighters already there, a U.S. commander told Congress recently, CNN reported.
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