Zakharova: Much of US aid to Afghanistan falls into the Taliban

A large part of the military equipment supplied by the US to the Afghan authorities falls into the hands of the Taliban, the Spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said on May 27.

The diplomat cited the report of Michael Hughes, an American political scientist from the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "Thus, the Pentagon is not sure of the proper spending of $3.1 billion allocated to Kabul during the period 2014 - 2017 to strengthen the security forces of this state. It is noted that the practice of premature writing-off of military property - ammunition, fuel, cars, is widespread among Afghan security officials," the representative of the Russian foreign ministry said.

Zakharova also drew attention to the fact that according to the report, "the US military department has not found 95,000 vehicles handed over to Afghanistan since 2005." The report notes that about $1 billion annually falls to the Taliban from poorly controlled funds created by the Agency for International Development (USAID), Zakharova added. Based on the information mentioned above, the accusations against Russia in supporting the Taliban seem strange.

As EADaily reported earlier, Washington has repeatedly accused Moscow of helping the Taliban. In March, the commander of the US Armed Forces and NATO in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, in an interview with the BBC noted that Russian weapons are delivered to the Taliban across the border with Tajikistan. "We have Taliban stories published in the media about the financial support provided by the enemies. We have the weapons that the Afghan leaders gave us with the words "This is Russia that gave the Taliban". We do know that Russia is involved in it," Nicholson said.