The Pentagon statement conflicts with other statements. That's why Congressional hearings are necessary.

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The Times, in its reporting, does not specify how many troops may have been killed by insurgents seeking monetary reward but does say officials were confident that Russian operatives offered and paid bounties to militants for killing Americans. In a separate report by CNN, an unnamed European intelligence official said Russia also offered bounties for the killing of soldiers from the United Kingdom.

According to the Times, U.S. officials have concluded that the bounty operation was orchestrated by the GRU — Russian military intelligence — which has also been linked to assassination attempts and other cloak-and-dagger operations, including the 2018 nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury, England.

The GRU is the same unit that U.S. intelligence has implicated in efforts to sway the 2016 presidential election. The investigation into Russian meddling in the election, led by former special counsel Robert Mueller, indicted 12 Russian nationals it identified as active-duty members of the GRU.

The Russian Embassy in Washington denied the Times report in a tweet on Saturday, calling the report "fake news." A spokesman for the Taliban told the newspaper that the report was "baseless."

Critics of Trump called the reporting further evidence that the president has failed to adequately curb the influence of Russia and has instead sought to foster a cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/28/884407572/trum...u-s-troops

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