Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops
■ The claim
The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence had concluded a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered Taliban-linked militants bounties for killing U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. The story set off weeks of coverage of what the president knew.
■ What actually happened
In April 2021 the Biden administration said the intelligence community had only low-to-moderate confidence in the assessment, in part because it relied on detainee interrogations and the difficult Afghan operating environment. A senior defense official said evidence that bounties were actually paid still had not been found, and the administration did not sanction Russia over the matter. The claim has never been proven false, but it also was never corroborated to the level the original reporting implied.
■ The proof
Biden White House statements of April 15, 2021 describing low-to-moderate confidence in the intelligence, as reported by NBC News and Axios.
■ Original reporting
- The New York Times: Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (June 26, 2020)https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html
■ Corrections, findings & records
- NBC News: Remember those Russian bounties for dead U.S. troops? Biden admin says the intel is shaky (Apr. 15, 2021)https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/remember-those-russian-bounties-dead-u-s-troops-biden-admin-n1264215
- Axios: Intelligence officials have low to moderate confidence in Russian bounty reports (Apr. 15, 2021)https://www.axios.com/intelligence-officials-low-moderate-confidence-russia-bounty-troops-b971724d-37f8-4eed-a003-95c86a82915d.html
- Biden White House fact sheet on Russia sanctions (Apr. 15, 2021), which responds to the bounty reports without sanctioning themhttps://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/15/fact-sheet-imposing-costs-for-harmful-foreign-activities-by-the-russian-government/
■ Wayback Machine copies
Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.
- Archive copy: The New York Times: Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (June 26, 2020)https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html
■ Grade
UNPROVEN: Reported as established fact but never corroborated. Not proven false, either. How we grade →