Russia's Supreme Court has lifted a ban on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, a group that was designated as a terrorist organisation more than two decades ago.
The Taliban was outlawed by Russia as a terrorist movement in 2003.
Russia's state media said the supreme court lifted the ban on Thursday with immediate effect.
The court's ruling on a request by the Prosecutor General's Office followed last year's adoption of a law stipulating that the official designation as a terrorist organisation could be suspended by a court.
Russia sees a need to work with the Taliban as it faces a major security threat from Islamist militant groups based in a string of countries from Afghanistan to the Middle East.
In March 2024, gunmen killed 145 people at a concert hall outside Moscow in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
US officials said they had intelligence indicating it was the Afghan branch of the group, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), that was responsible.
The Taliban says it is working to wipe out the presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan.
In recent years, the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have removed the Taliban from their lists of terrorist groups.
