Nikolai Bordyuzha, the secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), summed up the cooperation of CSTO members in the last months at a meeting in Moscow yesterday.
According to Nikolai Bordyuzha, the organization has been focusing on two main courses: "First, the coordination of security agencies, law-enforcement structures in issues related to combating extremism, terrorism, formation of a system of collective reaction to emergency situations, prevention of drug trafficking, information security. We have held coordinating councils, that is, consultations with heads of the agencies. We have completed work on some proposals for current activities and joint efforts for their realization.
The second course is combat training of the Collective Forces of the organization. For a short time, July, August, September, we held several drills. The most significant of them was Cooperation-2014. On the territory of Kazakhstan, in Karaganda Province, we held drills of the Collective Operative Reaction Forces. About 3,000 people, 250 vehicles, over 40 planes and helicopters took part in the drills."
Nikolai Bordyuzha emphasized that the CSTO was not planning to grant membership to other countries, because the organization was successfully cooperating with international structures: "It is China, it is Iran, it is over 26 countries in drug control. We have quite a big list of countries and organizations we cooperate with."
The secretary general noted that breaking ties with the Ukrainian military will have no impact on the military equipment of the organization. "The majority of national armed forces of all countries of the organization are equipped with Russian weapons. Russian factories are operating. You know about the program for import displacement, including displacement of components and weapon systems we used to receive or cooperate with Ukrainian enterprises. Every country of the organization may buy weapons systems in other countries. They do so, especially in single-piece systems bought in Russia and other countries needed for military activities. So, I do not think that the situation will have impact on the state or the process of arming all coutries of the organization," stated Bordyuzha.
Evaluating the NATO drills in Ukraine, Nikolai Bordyuzha said that the drills were a provoking aggravations: "I think that the country is in the state of a civil war, when fire has not been ceased yet, we also see serious confrontation. Holding drills on the territory of such state is nothing but an attempt to push one of the sides of the conflict towards stirring actions. It reminds a situation when two are fighting and the third one is standing behind the back and giving one of them a knife."
According to the CSTO secretary general, it is too early to speak about fulfillment of the Minsk Protocol: "You see 10-12 facts of shelling every day. But there is a positive tendency. Prisoners are being exchanged. There is no mass shooting, no major shellings of residential areas, it is good. I really hope that the protocol signed in Minsk and future agreements would bring peace and rule out instances of using weapons and small arms against the peaceful population, militia and law enforcers of Ukraine."
