MOSCOW, August 24. /TASS/. The situation around the Western evacuation of citizens from Afghanistan is characterized as chaos, Russian Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said in an interview Tuesday, adding that it would be difficult to complete the evacuation by August 31.
"Judging by the situation in the Kabul Airport, it would be rather difficult to wrap up [the evacuation] before August 31," he said. "On the one hand, the Americans address the Taliban movement, telling them: ensure safe passage of people to the airport. And when a crowd comes, they start shooting — seemingly in the air — scaring these people away from the airport. Therefore, chaos is the best way to characterize the situation."
Chizhov noted that there are currently about 400 locals in Afghanistan who served as employees of the EU mission in this country, but only 150 have been evacuated so far.
"And it was possible to evacuate them only because they managed to convince the Spanish government to accept the flight," he added. " EU’s innate problems are behind this."
He explained that the European Commission cannot issue visa for them, because provision of visas is the competence of EU member states.
On August 15, Taliban (outlawed in Russia) militants entered the capital city of Kabul without fighting and took complete control over the city in a matter of hours. The President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani announced that he was leaving the country in order to prevent bloodshed. Vice-President Amrullah Saleh claimed that in the absence of the president he becomes acting president in accordance with the Constitution. He urged the republic to continue fighting the Taliban. Meanwhile, Western states are in the process of evacuating their citizens and embassy employees from the republic. The evacuation deadline is currently set to August 3.