KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A Russian delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk arrived in Kabul Thursday for trade and investment talks with the Taliban government, Afghan officials said.
Russia officially recognized the Taliban government in July 2025. It remains the only country to have done so since the former insurgent group seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from the country. Largely isolated from the international community and with a struggling economy, Kabul has been keen to increase foreign investment and open new trade avenues.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Overchuk was due to meet with Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund and Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs.
The Afghan government said in posts on its official X social media account that in their meeting, Baradar stressed Afghanistan’s potential for economic development and investment, highlighting “its strategic location, rich resources and a large workforce of 24 million people of working age.”
During the meeting, Baradar invited Russian companies to invest in Afghanistan in sectors including mineral extraction, the development of factories, infrastructure and special economic zones. He also said there was scope to expand exports of Afghan agricultural products to Russia, and for Russian investment in Afghanistan’s agriculture and livestock farming, the government said.
The deputy prime minister also asked Russia “to provide the necessary facilities for Afghan products in Russian markets and to cooperate in reducing transportation and transit costs,” the government statement said. It said that Baradar also spoke of investment opportunities in railway and road construction projects.
Interfax news agency quoted Overchuk as saying that Russia intends to develop trade ties with Afghanistan.
“Today our delegation includes more than 70 businessmen representing dozens of Russian companies, many of which already work in Afghanistan, (while) many want to begin working,” Interfax quoted him as saying. “For our part, first of all, we see the task in creating conditions for contacts between business communities to develop normally.”
Overchuk said that companies represented in the delegation are involved in transportation, logistics, agriculture and pharmaceuticals. He said that the Afghan government is interested in Russian fertilizers, including in “building fertilizer production plants directly in Afghanistan.”
“We see a big interest from the government of Afghanistan in developing relations with Russia,” Overchuk said, according to Interfax. “And we are ready to support Afghanistan in that. First and foremost, so that the economy develops, jobs are created, people have normal incomes and can live peacefully.”
While no country apart from Russia has offered formal recognition, the Taliban have engaged in high-level talks with many nations and established some diplomatic and economic ties with several countries, including the governments of China and the United Arab Emirates.
The Afghan government statement on the meeting quoted Overchuk as saying that trade between Russia and Afghanistan had more than doubled in the first eight months of 2026, reaching more than $349 million.
FILE - Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk attends a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov at the Grand Kremlin Palace at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. (Maxim Shemetov/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Democratic nominee Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot-counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration wants to sell public lands to states, tribes and local governments as part of an effort to “decrease the size of the federal estate,” according to a new plan presented by the Interior Department. Agency officials said the sale of federal property would allow the government to focus resources on “nationally significant” lands, which were not defined.
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Because of the Black population and its alignment with Democrats, Mississippi’s general elections have been closer for years than those in neighboring Southern states. Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential contests, but in 2023, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves managed to win reelection by a margin of just 3 percentage points.
Colom and other Black party leaders and strategists insisted throughout 2026 that he could narrow the gap with strong Black turnout, Republican discontent and an uptick in Democrats’ usual share of the white vote in Mississippi.
Results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta, which has a concentration of majority-Black counties. But nearly all of the state moved leftward from the 2024 election, when Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points.
The contest was a latecomer to the national spotlight, finally drawing attention and money months after Black senators, including Georgia’s Raphael Warnock and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks, first urged donors and party leaders to see it as winnable.
The son of a onetime Republican who worked for President Ronald Reagan, Colom produced one of the year’s most widely circulated ads. After Hyde-Smith seemed to brush off high beef prices by saying consumers could choose other proteins, Colom cut a 30-second spot depicting incredulous voters saying they’d “pick another senator instead.”
When Trump came to Corinth, Mississippi, in late October to rally with Hyde-Smith, Colom walked the line of Trump supporters as they waited to enter. He introduced himself and asked about their concerns.
President Donald Trump’s administration wants to sell public lands to states, tribes and local governments as part of an effort to “decrease the size of the federal estate,” according to a new plan presented by the Interior Department.
Agency officials said the sale of federal property would allow the government to focus resources on “nationally significant” lands, which were not defined. They offered no details on what parcels could be sold, nor the scope or location of potential sales.
The proposal drew quick pushback from some lawmakers, including Trump’s former Interior secretary, Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, showing it faces strong headwinds in Congress even before Democrats assume the majority in January.
The Interior Department’s five-year strategic plan also calls for land transfers and exchanges to support greater energy production, a centerpiece of the administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies. It reflects the Trump administration’s view of most public lands as assets to be used, rather than to be set aside for preservation.
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Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot-counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations despite having the largest share of Black residents of any U.S. state. The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.
“All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this,” Colom told a crowd of hundreds who gathered at Tougaloo College for his victory party. “I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we can show the country that Mississippi matters.”
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A person holds a sign at an election event for Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom speaks at an election event in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
