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FILE PHOTO: US troops on patrol in Afghanistan\u2019s Logar Province. \u00a9 AFP \/ Munir Uz Zaman<\/p><\/div>\n
RT.com<\/p>\n
Donald Trump said he hasn\u2019t discussed with Vladimir Putin the media report claiming that Russia had paid the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill US troops. This so-called \u2018intelligence\u2019 never even reached his desk, he repeated.<\/p>\n
Trump was addressed on the month-old story, which was first published in the New York Times, during his lengthy interview for \u201cAxios on HBO.\u201d<\/p>\n
His most recent phone call with Putin, on July 23, was about\u00a0\u201cother things,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the US president recalled.\u00a0\u201cAnd frankly, that\u2019s an issue that many people said was fake.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Among those playing down the allegation that Russia had been paying such bounties to Taliban fighters were US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who said that\u00a0\u201call the defense intelligence agencies have been unable to corroborate that report,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General, Mark Milley.<\/p>\n Even the New York Times itself later admitted that its bombshell article wasn\u2019t based on\u00a0\u201cexplicit evidence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Despite all this, interviewer Jonathan Swan kept referring to the report as\u00a0\u201cintelligence,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0but Trump said that this data hadn\u2019t even been reported to him officially.\u00a0\u201cIt never reached my desk. Because\u2026 they didn\u2019t think it was real.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The same goes for assumptions that Moscow had been providing the Taliban militants with money and weapons to fight the American troops, who have been in Afghanistan for 19 years now. \u201cI have heard that, but\u2026 again, it\u2019s never reached my desk,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the president pointed out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHey, Russia doesn\u2019t want anything to do with Afghanistan,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the US leader assured viewers.\u00a0\u201cRussia used to be a thing called the Soviet Union. Because of Afghanistan, they went bankrupt. They became Russia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The military campaign which the USSR waged in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, is widely believed to be one of the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Trump also reminded that it was the US who\u2019d supplied the Taliban with arms during that conflict.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting. Nobody ever brings up China. They always bring up Russia, Russia, Russia,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he said, indicating that he was more interested in discussing Beijing than Moscow.<\/p>\n The US\u2019 lengthy presence in Afghanistan was also among the topics of the interview, with Trump promising to greatly reduce the contingent, which now stands at 8,500.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll be down in a very short period of time to 8,000. Then we\u2019re going to be down to 4,000. We\u2019re negotiating right now,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n However, he refused to name an exact date for the withdrawal, only saying that it\u2019ll happen \u201cvery soon.\u201d<\/p>\n Ending the US\u2019 participation in overseas conflicts, including Afghanistan, was one of Trump\u2019s key campaign promises during the 2016 election. But its fulfilment faced strong opposition from the president\u2019s security advisers and the Pentagon, who insisted that an abrupt withdrawal will plunge an already turbulent Afghanistan into complete chaos. So, the US contingent only grew, reaching more than 12,000.<\/p>\n However, last month some 4,000 troops were pulled out from the country, in line with February\u2019s peace deal that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban. The agreement calls for a full US exit from the country by next spring.<\/p>\n