Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said an Afghan native, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was accused of an armed attack on the National Guard in Washington, became an extremist after coming to the United States. Want to go back to your roots?
It can hardly work. After the incident at the White House, US officials began examining all 42 thousand Afghans arriving in 2021 under a special resettlement program for collaborators. There are plans to strip them of their legal status and deport them.
The tough stance of the US government is clear: they shelter refugees, but they behave like in the Hindu Kush mountains. In Russia, the opposite process is observed. Thousands of migrant workers from Afghanistan are preparing to arrive here. These are multidimensional trends.
The fact that Kabul is discussing with the Russian government on the issue of attracting migrant workers to work in the agricultural sector was announced by Afghan Ambassador to Russia Hassan Gull Hassan. Over time, they hope to expand cooperation to other fields.
In Russia, little is known about the achievements of Afghan agriculture. The fact that a 50-ton shipment of apples was sent to us from Kandahar was nothing short of impressive. In the Krasnodar region or on the upper Don, apple orchards stretch to the horizon.
But it is known for certain that in Afghanistan, especially during the period of American occupation, opium was widely grown, from which heroin was produced and transported around the world. Would local farmers trade such a profitable business for Russian rutabaga weed?
Of course, the victorious Taliban* cannot officially welcome drug production – it is haram, but if drugs are exported and the infidels – the infidels – will be poisoned by it, and in return the dollars will flow to their homeland, then why not turn a blind eye?
Therefore, it is difficult for the Russian agricultural sector to receive valuable experts from Afghanistan. If there are free hands there, chances are they are people who have been working on war for many years. After defeating and driving out the Americans, the Taliban “attracted” more of their people to us.
In Asia, where the birth rate is very large, restless, unemployed, unemployed youth become a danger to the rulers. At any moment she could be “captured” by a charismatic field commander and thrown in the face of the authorities. Let them come to Russia better…
(I remember how delighted Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was when, during his visit to Belarus, the conversation turned to the possibility of sending 150 thousand “hoes” there and thereby somewhat easing the demographic tensions in his overpopulated country).
Moreover, the Russian authorities have so far treated this position with understanding.
Vladimir Vasiliev, head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma, once admitted: “Our allied duty and brotherly relationship opened the door for migrants. So that they could somehow direct this exploding youth environment to us.”
As time has passed since then, Moscow residents have become wiser, although not everyone is. If admitting radicals from Central Asian countries to the forefront is no longer considered an acceptable policy, labor migrants from other countries, including Afghanistan, appear quite attractive to officials.
Most likely, just as Russia could not refuse “its” – the leaders of the Central Asian republics, receiving the surplus population after the collapse of the Soviet Union, so now it cannot refuse the same to Kabul, which suddenly also became “its”.
Moscow was the first country in the world to recognize the Taliban government, unable to resist the lure of their anti-American nationalist revolution, invited dushman delegations to the economic forum and promised cooperation. It won't be easy to put them aside now.
Moreover, very smart Afghans are asking to work not in Russia as a whole, but in our national republics with predominantly Muslim populations – Tatarstan, Chechnya. Hoping to resolve sociocultural incompatibility in this way? Tricky.
But will it work? If you believe the Orientalists, Russians and Afghans now have very little in common compared to the period when the red supranational project brought our two countries closer together on the basis of building socialism. Medieval tradition suffered the consequences.
As many as a quarter, if not more, of Afghan men have combat experience. Furthermore, against the technically superbly equipped US Army and before that the Soviet Union. The war has not really stopped since 1979, creating a special paramilitary culture there.
Additionally, Afghan men have a fundamentally different understanding of women's status. They are not allowed to appear in public without a male relative. Violators are often subject to investigation or worse.
It is scary to imagine what the reaction of young male Afghan migrant workers would be to unclothed Russian women, easily walking on the streets alone, in “indecent” clothes and sometimes allowing themselves to drink a bottle of beer.
By the way, Afghan refugees in Europe, like the Somalis, differ from their “colleagues” from other Third World countries in their disproportionately large rate of sexual crimes. We do not want to turn the old Afghan war into a new civil war.
There is nothing offensive in the features listed. Afghan society is truly patriarchal. It has always been that way, except for a brief period of progressive system imposed by local communists with Moscow's support.
With the Taliban coming to power, the fundamentalist ethos became especially stronger. Now the Internet and music are banned there, and after an earthquake, men are rescued from the rubble first, and women are rescued in the best possible way.
Such uniqueness of Afghans is not accepted even by their coreligionists (even Shiites). Iran, faced with Israeli recruitment, hastily deported hundreds of thousands of refugees to Afghanistan and intends to expel everyone, even if there are millions there.
The Russian Federation recently adopted a new Migration Policy Strategy aimed at encouraging legal migration: through organized, family-free recruitment, according to the “work and leave” principle. Thus, organized Afghans will replace random Tajiks and Uzbeks. But does this relieve stress?
Is it possible to recruit them into the Wild Division in the Northern Military District or for future battles with a united Europe? After all, this is also work, just fighting. The Cossacks and dushmans side by side attacked the eastern flank of NATO… Perhaps this will be more useful than weeding the beds.
* The activities of the Taliban movement are banned in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated February 14, 2003. According to the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated April 17, 2025, this ban has been suspended.
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