Putin in negotiation with Taliban to procure US arms in exchange for recognition: Insider

Russia's president Vladimir Putin is planning to procure the weaponry left behind during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal by the US Army, a Kremlin insider said, according to the Taliban based Telegram channel General SVR. Putin has been in process of negotiating with the terror group to procure leftover arms to be used by Russian forces in the ongoing military offensive in Ukraine in exchange for recognising the Taliban government, the source claimed. Those insider sources familiar with the development, and the details of the negotiations between the militant group and the Kremlin, said that the Taliban are extremely "surprised" with such a proposal" and that they have been "discussing the same earnestly." 

"Putin is overseeing negotiations with the Taliban to recognise the Taliban government. In return, the Russian leadership is offering a major arms and military equipment swap," General SVR channel wrote. 

"Putin reported that the Taliban possess weapons and equipment including those seized after coming to power in Afghanistan, that are scarce for the Russian Army at the front," it further stated. 

As the United States Army had frantically pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban militants plundered massive stocks of Western artillery, attack helicopters, and up to 50,000 armoured vehicles. The weaponry was worth half a million, that was seized by the Taliban. Pentagon spent an estimated £62billion on purchasing weapons and equipment to supply to the former Ashraf Ghani administration led Afghan military forces. 

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), in a report released earlier last year, revealed that the US backed Afghan commandoes had possessed more than 150 aircraft which may have been captured by the Taliban as they were defeated. US President Joe Biden's National security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had also acknowledged the information at a White House press briefing, saying that government, at  the time, did not have "a complete picture, obviously, of where every article of defence materials has gone, but certainly, a fair amount of it has fallen into the hands of the Taliban."

US left behind $7.12 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan

The US supplied 22,174 Humvees, 33 Black Hawk helicopters, 23 Super Tucano fighter planes, an estimated 115 Maxx Pros trucks, 634 M1117s armoured vehicles, 549,118 machine guns, 16,035 pairs of night vision googles, 162,043 radios and some 8,000 trucks. assault rifles, pistols, and 4 C-130 transport planes to the Afghan Air Force. A Department of Defense report stated that the United States Army had left behind an estimated $7.12 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan during the chaotic withdrawal that concluded on August 30, 2021. 

Those military equipment was eventually seized by Taliban fighters as the Capital Kabul fell. The US Defense Department had “no plans” to either retrieve the left weaponry from the Taliban “or destroy" the equipment, a wide-ranging congressional mandated DoD report revealed. US military had handed the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) equipment ranging from aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, and communications equipment amounting to $18.6 billion between 2005 to August 2021, the DoD report stated.