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Russia concerned over tense situation around West’s evacuation from Afghanistan — Kremlin

Dmitry Peskov underscored that "the security of Russian citizens remains an unconditional priority and everything would be done to ensure it"

MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/. Russia remains concerned over the extremely tense situation around the West’s evacuation of citizens from Afghanistan and follows this situation most closely, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists Wednesday.

"We saw reports that the Taliban [outlawed in Russia - TASS] themselves have set up a deadline of August 31, and we know that this issue was discussed at the G7 emergency meeting yesterday," the spokesman said. "The situation is developing, time is running out, the situation remains extremely tense and we still follow it most closely and retain our concerns."

He underscored that "the security of Russian citizens remains an unconditional priority and everything would be done to ensure it."

However, Peskov redirected questions about the timeline of Russian Ministry of Defense evacuation of Russian, Ukrainian and CSTO citizens from Afghanistan to the Russian defense agency itself.

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.