Moscow denied a New York Times report, quoting US officials, that it had secretly paid money to fighters close to the Taliban to push them to kill Western soldiers in Afghanistan.

In a tweet published on Twitter today, Saturday, the Russian embassy in the United States said, "The baseless, anonymous accusations that Moscow is behind the killing of American soldiers in Afghanistan have led to direct threats to the lives of the employees of the Russian embassies in Washington and London."

In another post, the embassy called on the New York Times to stop what it described as fabricating false information, and asked the US authorities to take effective measures to preserve the safety of its employees.

The New York Times quoted unnamed officials as saying that a Russian military intelligence unit had distributed money to Islamist fighters and criminals close to the Taliban, in order to push them to kill American soldiers or elements of the NATO force in Afghanistan.

The newspaper also reported that US President Donald Trump viewed this information, and added that the US administration recently shared this information with Britain, whose soldiers in Afghanistan were targeted by this reward program, as are American soldiers, according to the same report.

Although the Taliban are officially banned in Russia, in 2019 Moscow hosted a session of peace negotiations on the conflict in Afghanistan in the presence of representatives of the parties to the conflict.

Russia, which is concerned about the situation in Afghanistan because of the conflict's proximity to its sphere of influence in Central Asia, denies US accusations it has provided aid to the Taliban.

On February 29, Washington and the Taliban signed a historic agreement that provided for the gradual withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, and for peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban that began in April to forget the process of exchanging thousands of prisoners from both sides.