On Monday, the US Department of Defence confirmed that America's 20-year presence in Afghanistan had come to a close, when the final Boeing C-17 Globemaster departed from Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport around 3:29 p.m. Eastern Time.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the 20-year US presence in Afghanistan only resulted in tragedies.

"For twenty years, American troops had been on this [Afghan] territory and for twenty years they tried - one can say this without offending anyone - to civilise the people who live there, to introduce their norms and standards of life in the broadest sense of the word, including the political organisation of society", Putin said at a meeting with students from the school of the All-Russian Children's Centre "Ocean" in Vladivostok on Wednesday.

The Russian president added that "tragedies and losses [...] pertaining to the US and especially those who live in Afghanistan" were the only results of this nearly 20-year presence. 

"The result was zero, if not to say that everything turned negative", Putin noted.