MOSCOW (TASS) — The Taliban militant group (outlawed in Russia) denies reports saying that it received offers from Russia to attack U.S. troops in exchange for cash rewards, representative of the Taliban’s political office Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai told reporters on Friday.

“It’s just completely false. We reject this completely”, he said.

According to the Taliban official, U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan. Taliban members have been fighting them since 2001, and they do not need anyone to offer bounties to them, he stressed. “We fight the invaders without reward”, he added.

On June 26, 2020, the New York Times claimed that Russian intelligence officers had offered bounties to Taliban fighters to attack international coalition troops in Afghanistan.

On June 29, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed these allegations as lies and completely false reports. The Russian Foreign Ministry described the first U.S. media report on the issue as containing deliberately false information.