An assembly of the army alliance of post-Soviet countries led by Moscow “did not go well,” according to a Russian analyst, amid internal disputes and without a public consensus expressing President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The one issued after the meeting of the six members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) does not mention Ukraine or what Russia calls its “special operation. “
The organization with Putin as its geopolitical center of gravity is the reaction of the post-Soviet world to NATO and welcomed the Kremlin through the Russian leader, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of its founding.
But the Russian leader and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, talked about the war in Ukraine.
Russian news agencies reported that Putin repeated unfounded claims that Ukraine is pulling out biological weapons and revised his justification for the war he is waging by describing the “rampant neo-Nazism” in his neighbor.
Lukashenko spoke of Ukraine’s “attempted dismemberment” and condemned the way the country had fallen under western influence. However, the independent Russian-language news program Meduza reported that “other participants in the assembly did not say anything publicly about Ukraine. “
While Putin said the “army special operation” in Ukraine would be discussed behind closed doors on Monday, CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas said “the question of the CSTO’s imaginable involvement in this army special operation has not been raised or discussed. “
Before and after the start of the Russian invasion, the government of Kazakhstan, where there were political unrest in January, said CSTO troops would not fight in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticized the CSTO countries for promoting weapons to Azerbaijan. The Caucasus’ neighbors have been involved in hostilities for decades over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was revived in late 2020.
“The reaction of the CSTO member states and after the 44-day war in 2020 did not leave Armenia or the other Armenians very satisfied,” he said.
Putin also gave the impression of being defensive about NATO enlargement, saying at the summit that Russia “has no problem” with Finland and Sweden’s plans to join the alliance, as announced last week, he said, “we will react accordingly. “”
“It was not a satisfied assembly and it did not go well,” tweeted Russian expert and economist Anders Åslund. Putin. “
“Putin had a very bad day and complained and lied even worse than Lukashenko,” tweeted Åslund, from the e-book “Russia’s Crony Capitalism. “
Former US ambassador to Kazakhstan William Courtney tweeted: “At the CSTO summit, court cases by #Russes and Belarusians over Moscow’s lack of support for Moscow’s invasion of #Ucrania stand in stark contrast to the unity of Western allies. “
Newsweek has reached out to the CSTO for comment.