The Russian Foreign Ministry has commented the CNN report about alleged Russian weapons deliveries to the Taliban movement in Afghanistan (SOURCE):
We have taken note of the CNN videos about alleged Russian weapons deliveries to the Taliban.
It is impossible to take videos that show obsolete weapons of unidentifiable origin seriously. The weapons in question have no brand stamps or numbers. These are standard weapons that could be made anywhere. Everyone knows that these weapons were produced not only in Russia but also in other countries, including in Eastern Europe, from which the Americans transported large batches of these weapons to Afghanistan in the early 2000s.
The Taliban drove American-made Humvees in a recent attack on the base of the Afghan National Security Forces in Helmand. It is easy to imagine the conclusion that can be made from this news based on CNN’s logic.
We have said many times that the allegations regarding Russian support for the Taliban, which some Western media make and some Afghan media repeat, are absolutely groundless. So far, neither the Afghan authorities, nor the US and NATO commands in Afghanistan have presented any facts to prove these allegations.
We have to say this again: Russia is not supplying weapons to the Taliban. Russia only maintains contact with them so as to protect the security of Russian citizens in Afghanistan and to encourage the Taliban to join the national reconciliation process.
Earlier this week, CNN released “exclusive videos” that allegedly confirms that Russia provides weapon to the Taliban (SOURCE):
US generals first suggested they were concerned the Russian government was seeking to arm the Afghan insurgents back in April, but images from the battlefield here corroborating these claims have been hard to come by.
These two videos show sniper rifles, Kalashnikov variants and heavy machine guns that weapons experts say are stripped of any means of identifying their origin.
Two separate sets of Taliban, one in the north and another in the west, claim to be in possession of the weapons, which they say were originally supplied by Russian government sources. One splinter group of Taliban near Herat say they obtained the guns after defeating a mainstream rival group of Taliban. Another group say they got the weapons for free across the border with Tajikistan and that they were provided by “the Russians.”
A screenshot from the CNN video
