Photo: RIA Novosti/Artem Ivanov
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Minsk on Thursday 23 November for the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) summit.
The Kremlin said the agenda covers key issues of interaction among CSTO members, including further improving the collective security system. The leaders will also touch on regional and international issues.
Putin was greeted by an honor guard. The Russian leader greeted those who met with a handshake. When the president stepped off the plane, he was escorted to the airport building in Minsk.
Earlier, on November 22, the Russian president's press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that Putin independently does not plan to communicate with the bloc's leaders. However, he said communication with them on the sidelines of the summit would be mandatory.
On the same day, before the summit, Putin held a meeting with members of the government, at which he said that the CSTO had done a lot of work to create a unified air defense system for the organization's member countries. Specifically, Russia has already supplied Tajikistan with eight S-300 air defence launchers.
On December 19, 2022, Putin also said that he had held talks with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on the creation of a unified defense space, as well as on cooperation within the CSTO. Minsk has chaired the organization since January 1 this year.
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation is a military-political alliance formed by CIS states to stabilise the situation in partner countries in the event of an emergency. The CSTO consists of six states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Tajikistan.
Until 1999, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan also participated in the agreement, but did not extend the partnership.
(Izvestia/RoZ)
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