After months of top US generals insinuating, and sometimes flat out alleging, that Russia is “arming the Taliban,” the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has finally stepped forward and admitted to the Senate that there “is no physical evidence” to back up such a claim.

Since Russia has been on bad terms with the Taliban for decades, the allegations never made any sense, but began being pushed by US officials with NATO ties roughly around that Russia offered to help broker peace talks, apparently based wholly on them having invited the Taliban to the talks.

The DIA’s comments appear to support this being the reason, saying they had “some indications” Russia had offered something to he Taliban, but that there was no evidence it ever amounted to anything, let alone weapons or money.

The Russia-brokered attempt at peace talks never went anywhere, with the US openly spurning the efforts, saying they didn’t trust Russia’s motivations in trying to end the war after 16 years of American occupation.