"This a catastrophe indeed. These are not just my words, this is what US analysts admit ... If we look at the number of people who used to work for the Collective West, the United States and its allies, and are now abandoned in Afghanistan, this is a humanitarian catastrophe," Putin said on Friday at a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum.

Democracy cannot be imposed on a nation through violent methods, if people need democracy they will eventually achieve it, the Russian president emphasized.