MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russia-led security bloc, is holding strategic command exercises to drill the skills of stabilizing the situation in the Central Asian region amid the growing threats, Vladislav Shchegrikovich, a spokesman for the CSTO Joint Headquarters, said.
"A training military-political and strategic situation has been mocked, with the names of countries and organizations being changed, to model a scenario of the escalation of potential threats in the zone of responsibility of the organization and a crisis situation in a conventional Central Asian region of collective security," he said.
According to CSTO Secretary General Imangali Tasmagambetov, the drills are being held "in a difficult international situation." "Old conflicts are aggravating in various regions of the world and new hotbeds of tension are emerging, including in the CSTO zone of responsibility. Present-day crises are characterized by a hybrid nature and require comprehensive approaches to their solution," he said, adding that the drills are geared to improve the algorithm of collective anti-crisis actions and assess their efficiency.
The drills are being held under the command of Chief of the Joint Headquarters Colonel General Andrey Serdyukov.
Under the drill’s scenario, a president of a CSTO member state applies for help to the chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council. An extraordinary session of the Council makes a decision to hold a peacekeeping operation. To implement this decision, a crisis response center and crisis management groups of the member states are set up. Special attention is focused on the formation of peacekeeping forces and their deployment to the conflict zone, as well as issues of military-technical assistance.