Expert: CSTO is military defensive alliance created with view on regional challenges and threats

Minsk will host a joint meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, the Council of Defence Ministers and the Committee of Secretaries of Security Councils, as well as a session of the Collective Security Council with participation of the CSTO heads of state. The Collective Security Treaty Organisation is a military defensive alliance that was created taking into account regional challenges and threats: the fight against international organised crime and drug trafficking, the protection of borders in Central Asia from the actions of Islamic terrorists, and other pressing issues on the international and regional security agenda – such as the events that took place in Kazakhstan (the attempted coup in 2022), the problems in Nagorny Karabakh, the conflict on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border. Military expert Igor Chibisov commented on what the CSTO needs most today to effectively implement its tasks.

“I will voice the key idea: the CSTO member states should pursue a common policy, like Belarus and Russia. It’s no longer possible to be a fence-sitter in times when there is a hybrid war between the West and the East, a restructuring from a unipolar to a multipolar world order. There is something to learn from NATO which is our opponent: any decision made there is mandatory for all members of the bloc. From a military point of view, it is necessary to expand the military co-operation of the CSTO countries, and Russia should take a leading role – and this will definitely result in increased spending. The strengthening the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Forces, the organisation's peacekeeping forces is important for their quick transfer to any of the CSTO countries, as it was in Kazakhstan in 2022. Accordingly, it is needed to modernise the military equipment and weapons according to uniform standards, train personnel of the Armed Forces under the common programmes, taking into account the theatre of military operations of the CIS and the CSTO,” the expert said.

Joint training of troops is among the most important factors for the CSTO development. The Combat Brotherhood 2023 drills were held in Belarus not long ago, and – as part of the event – joint exercises for the CSTO collective rapid response forces Vzaimodeistviye 2023 [Interaction], the special exercise with reconnaissance forces and assets Poisk 2023 [Search], the exercise with logistics support forces and assets Eshelon 2023 [Echelon], and the exercise for nuclear, biological, and chemical protection troops and medical support Baryer 2023 [Barrier] were organised. The co-ordinated actions of all components of the CSTO Collective Rapid Reaction Forces were demonstrated during a number of joint operations. Summing up the results of the Combat Brotherhood exercise, the Chief of the Joint Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov, highly appreciated the military equipment of the Belarusian defence industry. At the same time, the first divisional set of the Polonez-M multiple launch rocket system has recently been transferred to the Armed Forces of Belarus for combat duty, it can simultaneously hit up to eight targets at a range of up to 300km. Experts say it rivals the American HIMARS system, since the Polonez-M uses satellite navigation to deliver high-precision strikes. This system has also been equipped with a modern heavy guided missile, and its characteristics are better than HIMARS shells and comparable to ATACMS missiles.