World News | Russian Military Planes Evacuate 200 People from Afghanistan
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Russian military transport planes on Saturday delivered a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Afghanistan and flew back 200 Russians, Afghan students and others, the defense ministry said.
Moscow, Dec 18 (AP) Russian military transport planes on Saturday delivered a shipment of humanitarian supplies to Afghanistan and flew back 200 Russians, Afghan students and others, the defense ministry said.
The ministry said that three Il-76 cargo planes will make stopovers in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan before flying to Moscow.
It said the planes were carrying citizens of Russia and Kyrgyzstan who wanted to leave Afghanistan, and Afghan students enlisted in Russian universities.
Saturday's mission is the latest in a series of such Russian flights since August.
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Previous flights have delivered humanitarian cargo and evacuated a total of 770 citizens of Russia and other ex-Soviet nations.
Unlike many other countries, Russia hasn't evacuated its embassy in Kabul and its ambassador has maintained regular contacts with the Taliban since they took over the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August.
Russia had worked for years to establish contacts with the Taliban, even though it designated the group a terror organization in 2003 and never took it off the list.
In October, Moscow hosted talks on Afghanistan involving senior representatives of the Taliban and neighbouring nations, a round of diplomacy that underlined Moscow's clout in Central Asia. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)