Collective Security Treaty Organization

Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of Armenia's Security Council, made a stark assessment days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan raised doubts about Armenia's role in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), dominated by Russia.

Armenia has declared its intention to withdraw from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a defense alliance formed in 1992 among former Soviet republics with Russia at its core. The CSTO currently comprises Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia.

Russia has agreed to remove some of its troops and border guards from Armenia, the Kremlin said on Thursday, after months of spiralling tensions between the two ex-Soviet allies.

"I invite Armenia to join NATO," he wrote on the social network X (Twitter), addressing Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Fellinger also added the phrase "Protect Armenia" and tagged U.S. President Joseph Biden's account in the post.

According to the Russian media, the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, organized the evacuation of over 500 citizens of Russia, but also citizens of the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and citizens of Ukraine.

"Yugoslavia, Libya, and now Afghanistan. Could something else have been expected? A trillion has been spent in vain," he noted.
Grushko reminded that in NATO, for 20 years, they talked about the fortress of "transatlantic harmony and taking into account the opinion of every member of the Alliance: we came together, we will leave together".

China is not planning on creating a united front with Russia against NATO, the Chinese Defense Ministry announced. Its spokesperson stressed that military ties between the two powers served as a basis for a strategic partnership. However, the sides are sticking to the principle of non-participation in the alliances and do not want any confrontation.

For the next year, he announced the first military exercise with China.
"We are cooperating with the NATO Alliance, but we are also cooperating with the CSTO (the Collective Security Treaty Organization made by former USSR countries) that do not ask us to give up part of the territory", Vulin said at the Serbian Parliament.

The exercise was held June 19-28 at the Rayevsky training ground in Russia's Novorossiysk region, the Serbian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has announced.

Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin told this to Tanjug on Thursday.

"NATO unconditionally respects our neutrality, just as does the Collective Security Treaty Organization is (CSTO), the Russian Federation and all other countries, but one of the reasons why it is respected and why in some future conflicts it would be respected is the strength of our army," Vulin said.