{"id":211505,"date":"2026-11-12T12:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T09:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/211505\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T12:17:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T09:17:34","slug":"behind-upbeat-statements-armenias-possible-departure-exposes-csto-struggles","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/211505\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind upbeat statements, Armenia\u2019s possible departure exposes CSTO struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) stripped Armenia of its voting rights on November 11 over unpaid membership dues and barred Armenian officials from holding CSTO jobs. In February 2024, Yerevan accused its allies of failing to support it in the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and froze its participation in the organization indefinitely.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In June 2024, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan even said that Armenia might withdraw from the CSTO as his country sought closer ties with the European Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will decide. Foreign agents will not decide what to do. We will not let [Alaksandar] \u0141uka\u0161enka be our guarantor again,\u201d Pashinyan said during a televised election debate on June 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will withdraw from the CSTO. What are you trying to scare us? Neither you nor your uncle [Russian businessman Samvel Karapetyan] decide. We will decide and pull out. Armenia is the guarantor, its state and army,\u201d Pashinyan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both moves effectively received the Armenian people’s endorsement in the parliamentary elections in June 2026 as. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won a convincing victory over the pro-Russian opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loose alliance still hoping for Armenia\u2019s return<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Failure to pay membership fees for more than two years would normally invite harsh sanctions in any organization. Yet the CSTO, which presents itself as an \u201calternative to NATO,\u201d has proved surprisingly lenient in enforcing its rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a long time, the organization simply turned a blind eye. Only now, at its November 11 summit in Moscow, did it decide to give the chronic defaulter a mild reprimand: Armenia was stripped of its voting rights at meetings that it does not attend anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, the discussion of Armenia’s case was not included in the summit’s live broadcast. What was said and how the members voted remained behind closed doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka, who loves lecturing Pashinyan, did not mention Armenia in his speech. Instead, he repeated the usual propaganda talking points about the \u201cmilitarization of the West\u201d and Russia’s supposedly correct position on settling the conflict in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesman, mentioned the decision to strip Armenia of its voting rights only in passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe issue was discussed,\u201d he said. \u201cA decision was made. Given that Armenia has failed to fulfill its obligations for several years, and guided by the organization’s charter, it was proposed and decided to strip Armenia of its voting rights, as well as its right to appoint representatives to senior positions in the CSTO.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, CSTO Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov assured reporters at a brief news conference that \u201cexpelling Armenia from the CSTO was not on the agenda.\u201d He added that Yerevan’s rights would be restored \u201cas soon as it decides to settle its outstanding membership fees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Armenia\u2019s interest in CSTO exhausted<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pashinyan has made it crystal clear that Armenia has no intention of holding on to its seat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur interests in the CSTO have been exhausted. We are no longer interested in the CSTO,\u201d the prime minister said before the summit. Rather than travel to Moscow, he went to Turkey to attend the 31st UN Climate Change Conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through its dismissive attitude toward the CSTO, Yerevan is sending at least two messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, it is expressing its assessment of the organization itself, which not only failed to come to Armenia’s aid during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but also appears to have no clear purpose. Can the CSTO really be called a collective security organization when, since its establishment in 1992, it has managed to attract just six post-Soviet states over more than three decades?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also the question of how united its members really are. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, for example, have been CSTO allies for years but have failed to resolve their border dispute, which has escalated into armed clashes leaving people dead and wounded. Meanwhile, Russia is waging war against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces regularly attack Russian territory with drones and have even sent sabotage groups and military units into the aggressor’s heartland. The CSTO has done nothing about it. At best, the bloc’s members treat the war as Russia’s internal affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, Armenia is clearly not afraid of Russia. It is certainly cautious: Pashinyan meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the country remains a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. But there is no sign of the subservience Moscow expects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was particularly evident during the summer parliamentary elections. As usual, the Kremlin promoted Russia-friendly candidates, but the Armenian government dealt resolutely with this kind of interference. All Russia could do in response was ban imports of Armenian cognac and mineral water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Putin and \u0141uka\u0161enka did not congratulate Pashinyan on his victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An inspiration for Belarus<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Armenia’s example shows that a country can gradually extricate itself from Moscow’s orbit and face nothing worse in response than expressions of displeasure. This is an important point to bear in mind when assessing Yerevan’s defiance from a Belarusian perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Belarus is not Armenia, and Putin attaches different geopolitical value to the two countries. The South Caucasus is an important region that the Kremlin wants to control, but not one over which it necessarily needs to risk a major confrontation. Russia’s army did invade Georgia though in 2008, occupying Abkhazia and South Ossetia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belarus (like Ukraine, of course) is an entirely different matter. These are sacred lands for Russian imperialists, who consider them their own, promoting the myth of the \u201ctriune people.\u201d These are territories worth fighting for, as we have been witnessing for years on Ukrainian soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Putin is not necessarily going to win his war against Ukraine. His \u201csecond-best army in the world\u201d is hopelessly bogged down in Donbas, while its failure to make a decisive advance in the Zaporizhzhia region has produced nothing but the humiliating meme about Mala Tokmachka. In this stalemate, Russia is trying to wear down its adversary by launching air strikes on cities and their civilian populations. But even this brings the aggressor little beyond sadistic gratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is not the weakening of Russia as a result of the war precisely what we are witnessing now? This is happening both on the Ukrainian battlefields and within organizations of countries friendly to Moscow, such as the CSTO. For Belarus, this may be a sign of things to come, offering the prospect that the country may finally manage to break free from the Kremlin’s grip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, this will happen only after \u0141uka\u0161enka leaves office. He is the chief architect of Minsk’s appalling dependence on Moscow, a loyal Kremlin vassal for decades who understands state sovereignty solely as the sovereignty of his own rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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