Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an operational meeting to consider the situation in Afghanistan.
MOSCOW, May 2 - Sangar, Talib Aliyev. The meeting took place on April 29, at a time when Russia itself is involved in a war with Ukraine on its western borders. Official Russian sources did not provide information about the details of this meeting, but the Sangar website managed to get some of them.
The press service of the President of the Russian Federation briefly reported that Vladimir Putin held an operational meeting with the permanent members of the Security Council via videoconference.
“The meeting was attended by Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration Anton Vaino, Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, Minister of the Interior Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu, Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin, Special Representative of the President for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport Sergei Ivanov", - the source says.
Vladimir Putin said that, from the point of view of ensuring the security of the country, the focus of our attention is, of course, the events related to the provision of assistance to our people in Donbas, with a special military operation in Ukraine.
“But we also have other issues that are of great interest from the point of view of just ensuring the security of our country, including in the southern direction. And so today we will discuss this issue in relation to the events in Afghanistan and in general in this region, in this direction,” the President of Russia said.
The press release from the Russian presidential press center ends with Vladimir Putin asking Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to present his report.
Further information about the meeting is not given in the message, and no further details are released after the meeting is over. But what happened at this meeting?
A source from the Sangar website, who is somewhat aware of the content of the meeting, said that Russia has decided on a plan to get ahead of its rivals and intends to implement them with its allies in this direction.
“The United States and its allies are playing a big game, trying to draw Russia into a situation where it will be necessary to simultaneously deploy its military contingent in various parts of the world and expose its defensive lines, including in the Afghan direction. The current situation has in the near or medium-term to achieve this goal through the destabilization of the Tajik-Afghan border, which is the southern and very important border of the CSTO,” he said.
According to him, during the meeting of the Security Council, President Putin heard the main ministers - the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of Defense, the head of the FSB on the situation in Afghanistan and possible threats of degradation of the military-political situation in the states bordering Afghanistan, primarily in the CSTO member countries.
“Depending on the voiced reports and the previously reported information, certain decisions could be made, the details of which are unknown. In any case, this is an attempt to seize the initiative from Western countries,” the source said.
Russia will focus on developments in Afghanistan while itself involved in a full-scale war in Ukraine. The events in Afghanistan in the second half of April, indicating the intensification of ISIS * activities, seem to have worried Moscow.
The terrorist group ISIS carried out about 20 attacks and suicide bombings across Afghanistan in a fortnight, primarily in the capital Kabul and the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, killing and injuring about 500 people.
* The organization is under UN sanctions or banned due to terrorist activities.
