Taliban will find it hard to live without drug revenue - Putin

MOSCOW. Oct 15 (Interfax) - The production of narcotic crops remains a pressing problem for Afghanistan, and it will not be easy for the new authorities to live without this source of income, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"The problem of drug production and trafficking from Afghanistan remains acute. Afghanistan is still the world's largest supplier of opiates. Despite a promise to fight drug production, I'm not sure whether the Taliban [banned in Russia] will actually be able to do that, whether they will want to do that or not... They were doing the job quite successfully in their previous iteration of power. But now, it won't be easy to abandon this source of income, especially in the context of the economic crisis," Putin said at a virtual summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States on Friday.