Speaking ahead of a scheduled meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev to be held in Moscow on Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has just dropped a diplomatic bombshell in the Kremlin square, the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Created in 2002 to unite certain ex-Soviet republics around Russia in terms of foreign policy within the framework of the CIS, the CSTO is based on a defense treaty including in particular an extended anti-aircraft defense, a unified general staff, as well as rapid intervention forces supposed to intervene in support of one of its members if it were to be attacked.
The CSTO today groups around Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia, while Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine belong to an organization that the can be described as a designated antagonist GUAM, which however does not include a military component. During the Azeri offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh under Armenian control, Moscow refused to intervene alongside Yerevan, stating that the disputed territories were not strictly speaking Armenian. It took a Russian combat helicopter being shot down by an Azeri missile for Moscow raises its voice and puts an end to this conflict.
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