Russia-led security bloc to meet for summit in Minsk in late November

November 16, Pozirk. Security officials from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member countries will meet in Minsk on November 22 to discuss the military and political situation in the bloc and surrounding regions.

The joint meeting of the councils of foreign and defense ministers, as well as security officials will focus on multilateral cooperation and collective security, the Russian foreign ministry said. Several joint documents are expected to be approved by the heads of delegations, it added.

A meeting of CSTO government members will be held on the eve of the CSTO Collective Security Council session scheduled for November 23 in Minsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the summit in Minsk.

Two days ago, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Alaksandar Łukašenka that he will not participate.

He criticized the CSTO for the lack of proper responses to “Armenia’s security challenges,” News.am reported.

Armenia is “looking for and finding” other security allies because the CSTO partners “cannot sell us weapons and ammunition, including for objective reasons,” he noted. “Strategically, we do not plan to announce a change in our policy until we decide to leave the CSTO,” Pashinyan noted.

The CSTO is a military-political alliance whose declared goals are strengthening peace, international and regional security and stability, and protecting the independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty of its member states. It consists of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.

The Russia-led bloc may be in crisis as it is failing to provide its members’ collective security, experts say. It lacks a unified position on Russia’s war on Ukraine, while two of its members, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, occasionally clash in the border area.