Moscow. October 13. INTERFAX-AVN - The United States planted a time bomb in Afghanistan, leaving a large number of weapons there, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.
"The United States, in fact, planted a time bomb in the region, including leaving the Taliban (the Taliban, a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) an unprecedented amount of modern weapons and military equipment. In the current situation, it can easily fall into the hands of terrorists from ISIS (a terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation), al-Qaeda (a terrorist group banned in the Russian Federation) or other groups that pose a serious threat to our states," Patrushev said on Wednesday in Moscow at a meeting of heads of security and intelligence agencies of the CIS states.
On September 30, Dmitry Shugaev, head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC), said that the United States had left $85 billion worth of weapons in Afghanistan.
"Frankly speaking, this figure of 85 billion is simply terrifying... Think about the numbers: 22 thousand armored vehicles, 358 thousand automatic rifles, 176 artillery installations, 8 thousand trucks, transport planes, more than a hundred helicopters. They were armed to the teeth and God only knows how it will all end," Shugaev said then in an interview with the Zvezda TV channel.
"We had a contract in 2011, it was signed by Rosoboronexport, for the supply of 63 military transport Mi-17V-5 helicopters. And here it should be noted that the contract holders were Americans, not Afghans (...) Where these cars are today, in whose hands they are, one can only guess," he said.
On August 25, the head of Rosoboronexport, Alexander Mikheev, told INTERFAX that a fleet of more than a hundred Russian-made helicopters delivered to Afghanistan would quickly become unusable without service and repair.
"The helicopter fleet there is large - more than 100 Mi-17 helicopters of various types. Of course, this fleet requires repair, maintenance, and spare parts supply," Mikheev said.
The Taliban entered Kabul on August 15 and declared that they had liberated Afghanistan and considered the war over. Prior to that, against the background of the withdrawal of US troops and their allies from Afghanistan, the Taliban conducted a large-scale offensive against Afghan government forces.
