Leading Democrats pounced on President Trump Saturday following news broke Friday evening that Russian military services intelligence brokers secretly supplied Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan bounties in trade for killing NATO and American troops stationed there.

The bombshell New York Times report revealed President Trump and the National Security Council were being knowledgeable of the covert operations in late March, as the country was sinking into the COVID-19 pandemic. The administration has spent months deliberating how ideal to react, but has so significantly taken no action.

“President Trump was cozying up to Putin and inviting him to the G7 all whilst his Administration reportedly understood Russia was seeking to get rid of US troops in Afghanistan and derail peace talks with the Taliban,” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said in a tweet.

Over on the house side, the Democratic managed-Property Committee on Foreign Affairs issued a statement to their possess Twitter account as very well, calling out Trump for several scenarios of previous coziness with the nation.

“Is there nearly anything Trump will not do for Putin,” they asked.

The Russian entity liable for the bounties, identified as Device 29155, is an arm of the country’s military intelligence company, the G.R.U., and has created a notorious status for carrying out covert and extralegal actions on behalf of the point out. The team was behind the hack of Democratic National Committee e-mail in the 2016 US presidential elections and the 2018 poisoning of ex-Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England.

Reps for the Taliban denied the fees, calling them “baseless.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to answer.

It is unclear why the G.R.U. was targeting US and coalition soldiers. Some intelligence officers have speculated the region could be making an attempt to derail peace talks concerning the US and Afghanistan, even though others believe the bounties could have been provided as revenge against a 2018 fight in Syria which killed hundreds of authorities-aligned forces and a variety of Russian mercenaries.