MILWAUKEE /Wisconsin/, July 19. /TASS/. Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump claims that Russia was inspired to launch its special military operation in Ukraine after seeing the disaster that was the US pullout from Afghanistan.
"Look at what’s happening with Ukraine. <...> It began to unravel with the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. <...> Emboldened by that disaster, Russia invaded Ukraine. They saw this group of people [the current US administration] that were incompetent," Trump insisted in his speech on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. During the speech which was a focal point of the forum, he officially accepted the Republican presidential nomination to run in the November election.
Trump said that the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was "the worst humiliation in the history of" the US. "And we also left behind $85 billion dollars’ worth of military equipment, along with many American citizens," he said.
On April 14, 2021, US President Joe Biden announced his decision to end America’s military operation in Afghanistan — the longest foreign military campaign in the history of the country. The US launched the operation in October 2001. At its peak (from 2010 to 2013), the number of Western forces in Afghanistan surpassed 150,000. The withdrawal of US troops began in May 2021. The US and NATO main combat forces left Afghanistan in 2014.