Yesterday, the Russian embassy in Kabul claimed that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country with four cars and a helicopter, all brimming with cash, according to a report from Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti. Reuters, alongside others, have since published the same claims.

The report quoted Russian embassy spokesman Nikita Ishchenko as saying, “The collapse of the regime … is most eloquently characterized by how Ghani escaped from Afghanistan: four cars were filled with money, they tried to shove another part of the money into a helicopter, but not everything fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac.”

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a news conference in Kabul, Afghanistan Oct. 1, 2015.
(Reuters photo by Omar Sobhani)

President Vladimir Putin’s special representative on Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, also spoke on President Ghani’s departure from the country.

Kabulov told Moscvow’s Ekho Moskvy radio station, “I hope the government that has fled did not take all the money from the state budget. It will be the bedrock of the budget if something is left.”

Adding to the sentiment, Kabulov described Ghani’s flight from Kabul as “disgraceful,” and that Ghani “deserves to be brought to justice and held accountable by the Afghan people.”

Kabulov is also said to have stated that the seizure in Kabul was unexpected, and that Russia alongside many others overrated the power of the Afghan Armed Forces.

These reports have not been verified independently, but are bolstered by claims from a variety of Russian personnel on the ground in Kabul, as well as the breadth by which they’ve been reported on.

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