WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Europe said on Thursday that he had seen Russian influence on Afghan Taliban insurgents growing and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the militants, whose reach is expanding in southern Afghanistan. 
 
 Commander of U.S. Forces in Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti speaks during a news conference in Tallinn, Estonia, March 14, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins 
 
 “I’ve seen the influence of Russia of late - increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban,” Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. 
 
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 He did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might be headed to the Taliban or how direct Russia’s role might be. 
 
 Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s. 
 
 But Russian officials have denied they provide aid to the insurgents, who are contesting large swaths of territory and inflicting heavy casualties, and say their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. 
 
 According to U.S. estimates, government forces control less than 60 percent of Afghanistan, with almost half the country either contested or under control of the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster. 
 
 Underlying the insurgents’ growing strength, Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said on Thursday. 
 
 The top U.S. commander in the country, General John Nicholson, said last month that Afghanistan was in a “stalemate” and that thousands more international troops would be needed to boost the existing NATO-led training and advisory mission. 
 
 Scaparrotti said the stakes were high. More than 1,800 American troops have been killed in fighting since the war began in 2001. 
 
 “NATO and the United States, in my view, must win in Afghanistan,” he said. 
 
 Taliban officials have told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond “moral and political support.” ||||| Russia may be influencing and supplying the Taliban in Afghanistan, the top U.S. general in Europe said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday. 
 
 Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who also serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told Senators that Russia’s role in Afghanistan seemed to be growing, according to Reuters. 
 
 "I've seen the influence of Russia of late — increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," Gen. Scaparrotti said. 
 
 Afghan National Army commandos in Helmand province on Oct. 9, 2016. NOOR MOHAMMAD / AFP - Getty Images 
 
 The news comes in the wake of the Taliban’s reported capture of the hotly contested town of Sangin in Afghanistan on Thursday, the location of a number of U.S. and British fatalities inside the deadly Helmand Province. 
 
 Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi shared a statement on Thursday that claimed the Taliban had captured Sangin’s district center, according to the Associated Press. 
 
 But that claim has been refuted by coalition forces. 
 
 American Army Capt. William K. Salvin, spokesman for NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, pushed back, alleging that Afghan forces still controlled the town but had simply moved its district center. 
 
 “This move to a new district center had been planned for some time,” Salvin said, noting that U.S. Forces assisted with the move and helped destroy buildings and inoperable vehicles to leave nothing usable behind. 
 
 “The only thing they left to the Taliban is rubble and dirt,” he added. 
 
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 The American military and NATO forces handed over control of Sangin to the Afghan military in 2013. Nineteen members of the American military have died maintaining the region since 2006, according to Operation Enduring Freedom statistics, and British forces lost more than a hundred soldiers in the town alone. 
 
 Russia, meanwhile, has largely been absent in the country since the Soviet Union fought a disastrous war there in the 1980s. But their renewed interest in the region, Scaparrotti said, seems to be growing. 
 
 Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month and told Senators that Russia was overtly attempting to legitimize the Taliban via a false narrative that they were fighting ISIS. 
 
 He added that he had received reports that Russia was also providing “support to the Taliban.” 
 
 The general called this “surprising” as “the Taliban have evolved over the years into a narco-insurgency and one that engages in extensive criminal activity, narcotics, kidnapping, illegal mining and other forms of criminal activity to fund their operations.” 
 
 Nicholson also noted that Russia had met with the Taliban in Moscow to discuss the future of Afghanistan, but hadn’t extended an invitation to the Afghan government. 
 
 Nicholson previously said the Afghan and U.S. forces “are in a stalemate” and requested “a few thousand” more soldiers to help train, advise and assist the local military. ||||| Top US general in Europe says Russia might be supplying the Taliban 
 
 Commander of the U.S. European Command Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti testifies during a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, March 23, 2017. In answer to questioning about Russian support for insurgents and terror groups, Scaparrotti said Russia and the Taliban are growing increasingly close, suggesting that the Kremlin might even be supplying the Taliban. 
 
 The top U.S. general in Europe told lawmakers Thursday that Russia and the Taliban are growing increasingly close, suggesting that the Kremlin might even be supplying the insurgent group. 
 
 Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, did not elaborate to the Senate Armed Services Committee on what type of equipment the Taliban might have received or when. 
 
 Any type of material support, however, would be a significant escalation of Russia's involvement with the Taliban; it has said in the past that it maintains only limited communication with the group. 
 
 "I've seen the influence of Russia of late, increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," Scaparrotti said. 
 
 Much to the chagrin of U.S. officials and military officers, Russia has justified its communications with the Taliban by saying the insurgent group is fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, not the U.S.-backed Afghan government. 
 
 Army Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, has decried Russia's contact with the Taliban, saying that it has given cover to a group that has worked for years to undermine the United States and the government in Kabul. Russia fought its own bloody war of attrition in Afghanistan in the 1980s, pulling out after suffering heavy losses from U.S.-supplied insurgents. 
 
 "This public legitimacy that Russia lends to the Taliban is not based on fact," Nicholson told reporters in December. 
 
 On Thursday, the district center of Sangin in Afghanistan's restive south province of Helmand was overrun by the Taliban after months of heavy fighting with Afghan forces backed by U.S. air support. In recent months, the Taliban has steadily increased control over large swaths of the country, prompting Nicholson to suggest that thousands more troops are needed to help better train the Afghan military and reverse the "stalemate" in the country. His assessment was subsequently echoed by Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command. 
 
 Currently, about 5,000 NATO troops are in the country, in addition to the 8,400-strong American presence. U.S. forces primarily support the Afghans through training and airstrikes while small contingents of Special Operations forces continue to conduct counterterrorism missions against the network of terrorist groups still located in the country. ||||| "These claims are absolutely false," Zamir Kabulov, head of the Russian foreign ministry's department responsible for Afghanistan and the Kremlin's special envoy in the country, told RIA Novosti state news agency. 
 
 "These fabrications are designed, as we have repeatedly underlined, to justify the failure of the US military and politicians in the Afghan campaign. There is no other explanation," AFP quoted Kabulov as saying. 
 
 NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, who also heads the US military's European Command, told lawmakers in Washington on Thursday that he had witnessed Russia's influence grow in many regions, including in Afghanistan. 
 
 In a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Scaparrotti said Moscow was "perhaps" supplying the Taliban. 
 
 In February, General John Nicholson, the US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, testified that Russia is encouraging the Taliban and providing them with diplomatic cover in a bid to undermine US influence and defeat NATO. 
 
 Kabulov in 2015 said that Russia was exchanging information with the Taliban and saw shared interest with them when it comes to fighting the Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terror group. 
 
 Russia considers the Taliban a terrorist group and it is banned in the country, along with the Daesh. 
 
 Taliban fighters on Thursday captured Afghanistan's strategic district of Sangin, where US and British forces suffered heavy casualties until it was handed over to Afghan personnel.
– There's been lots in the news about Russia lately, and a high-ranking US Army general just added to the mix—this time regarding the country's involvement with the Taliban. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the supreme allied commander of Europe for NATO, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday that he's noticed an uptick in Russian influence on the insurgent group in Afghanistan, and he raised the possibility that Moscow is giving the group supplies, reports Reuters. Russia and the Taliban deflected any insinuation that their relationship has ventured into equipment provisions, with Taliban officials telling Reuters that Russia has offered only "moral and political support." As for Russia's take on a possible supply chain: "Absolutely false," a Russian Foreign Ministry rep told RIA Novosti, via the Tasnim Iranian news agency. As Stars and Stripes notes, Russia has tried to evade full-on criticism for its Taliban rapport by claiming the militants are going after ISIS, not Afghani forces. However, Army Gen. John Nicholson, in charge of US forces in Afghanistan, has said he rejects the "public legitimacy" that Russia tries to impart on the Taliban. NBC News reports that Scaparrotti's theory comes just hours after reports that the Taliban had taken hold Thursday of the district center of the "hotly contested town" of Sangin, although that hasn't been confirmed. Scaparrotti didn't offer any elaboration on what provisions he thinks may have been offered by the Russians, or when this supposed handover may have taken place.