CSTO leaders reaffirm their determination to develop partnership

The CSTO must be a serious element in the modern system of checks and balances and take an active part in shaping the new international architecture.

The summit of the heads of state of the Collective Security Treaty Organization is hosted by Moscow today. The Grand Kremlin Palace has brought together the leaders of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In his speech, Alexander Lukashenko spoke fundamentally about the situation in the world and all the pain points of the CSTO. The West is engaged in a bitter struggle for its positions. And a full-scale hybrid war is deployed against Belarus and Russia. NATO is aggressively flexing its muscles, pulling neutral countries towards it. Against this background, the CSTO lacks unity, which could have dire consequences.

NATO continues to strengthen the eastern flank

The constant militarization and pumping of weapons onto the eastern flank of NATO causes concern. Now a large-scale exercise, Defender of Europe 2022, is taking place on the territory of 19 European countries.

Alexander Lukashenko, President of the Republic of Belarus:

“There is still a grouping of about 15,000 troops on the Belarusian-Polish border, stationed there last year under the pretext of the migration crisis. This is in addition to those permanent troops that were present there. Last year, 15 thousand, mostly Americans, were moved there. The migrants are long gone, but the troops are still there. The question is, why?”

Ukrainian issue on the agenda of the CSTO summit

The most urgent issue on the international agenda is the situation on the territory of Ukraine. That state is now completely under Western control and cannot conduct an independent and sovereign policy. According to the Belarusian leader, the roots of the current conflict should be sought in the Maidan of 2014.

"Today there is no more pressing and important issue than the conflict around Ukraine. Since 2014, all of us have provided all the necessary assistance to resolve it. In principle, we are ready, all those sitting around the table, to do so now in any format," the head of state said.

He stressed that Ukraine has been incited and instigated by nationalism, Nazism, and, as the events in Odessa, where people were burned alive, fascism, as well as Russophobia and weapons. "They were poisoned with whatever they could," he said.

Alexander Lukashenko, President of the Republic of Belarus:

“After the elections in Belarus in August 2020, with regard to interaction with Belarus, Ukraine completely, as we used to say, lay under the West. Over the past two years, we have constantly felt the unfriendly actions of our southern neighbor. Ukraine was proactive in imposing sanctions against us. That is, the West has not yet imposed any sanctions, including the Americans. Ukraine was the first to do it. They closed the skies, the railroads. Then they started to train fighters, to plant them on us. Then weapons went across the border. This is all known. They carried out provocative actions by aviation by conducting reconnaissance with Ukrainian drones in the airspace of Belarus. The facts speaking about the threat to our national security are indisputable. That is why we were absolutely right to use the mechanism of support within the framework of the alliance with Russia. Even before Russia's military operation, Belarus had drawn attention to the unjustified increase in the West's military presence in Ukraine and in the region as a whole. We have repeatedly spoken about this and warned that a conflict was on the way.”