Russia participates in Afghan heroin bust

For the first time, Russian counternarcotics agents participated in a NATO led raid in Afghanistan yesterday:  The operation, in which four opium refining laboratories and over 2,000 pounds of high-quality heroin were destroyed, was the first to include Russian agents. It also indicated a tentative willingness among Russian officials to become more deeply involved in ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

For the first time, Russian counternarcotics agents participated in a NATO led raid in Afghanistan yesterday: 

For the first time, Russian counternarcotics agents participated in a NATO led raid in Afghanistan yesterday: 

The operation, in which four opium refining laboratories and over 2,000 pounds of high-quality heroin were destroyed, was the first to include Russian agents. It also indicated a tentative willingness among Russian officials to become more deeply involved in Afghanistan two decades after American-backed Afghan fighters defeated the Soviet military there.

“This is a major success for cooperative actions,” Viktor P. Ivanov, Russia’s top drug enforcement official, told journalists in Moscow. “This shows that there are real actions being taken amid the reset in relations between Russia and the United States.”

Ivanov was in Washington last week for meetings with his U.S. counterparts, at which this upcoming operation was most likely discussed. Despite his upbeat comments today, more operations like this one are unlikely to appease the Russian government. Here’s what Ivanov told me about raids on drug laboratories in an interview last Friday:

"One of the results we discussed is a 92 percent increase in the number of laboratories destroyed. From the point of view of arithmetic, this is the case. In reality it looks a little bit different." According to Ivanov, the number of identified drug laboratories operating in Afghanistan has actually increased from 175 in 2008 to 425 today. The real number is likely much higher. He described the efforts to crack down on laboratories so far as a "drop in the ocean."

Since the Obama administration appears highly unlikely to embrace Ivanov’s preferred method — aerial eradication — the Russian government will probably have to live with more raids for now, even if it does little to address Russia’s exploding heroin and HIV epidemics. 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: Russia

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