No point for Russia to send troops to Afghanistan
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Russia has no aims to beef up its presence in Afghanistan, said an expert from the Military University of Defense Ministry Thursday ahead of the Lisbon summit between Russia and NATO.
Russia's participation in the Afghanistan campaign has been making headlines in recent days, but so far no official decisions or commentaries have been made.
Oleg Kulakov stressed there is no sense in sending Russian troops to the country as the question of maintenance will arise.
"Over third of our casualties in Afghanistan were caused while performing the tasks over maintenance of its troops. These numbers are not acceptable," said Kulakov at a Moscow press conference.
The Afghanistan issues, including that of drug trafficking and foreign countries' presence in the country, were expected to be on the agenda at the upcoming Lisbon summit.
Kulakov stressed these problems could be solved without Russian troops' presence in the country, as NATO's multinational antiterrorist coalition has been currently operating there.
Recently NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia and NATO should strengthen cooperation in tackling drug trafficking.
"So it is possible since all the problems are to be resolved at the date of the Russia-NATO Council in Lisbon and today I believe is too early to predict anything," Kulakov told Xinhua.
"As for the Russian side, I believe we are ready for that. So it's just up to NATO to decide (whether) to be involved or not," he said.
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