MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. Representatives of the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will hold joint drills to practice measures for developing political and diplomatic methods of settling crisis situations, Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov said on Tuesday.
The chief of the CSTO Joint Staff delivered a report at the Coordination Conference under the bloc’s Parliamentary Assembly Council that gathered together the chairmen of the Defense and Security Committees (Commissions) from the parliaments of the organization’s member states. As the general stressed, the current military-political and strategic situation in the area of the CSTO’s responsibility was taken into account in planning the bloc’s joint drills.
The post-Soviet security bloc will start practicing joint tasks with a simulation exercise that will be held under the direction of CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas, the general said.
"The first stage envisages practicing proposals on political and diplomatic methods of settling a crisis situation. The second stage will be aimed at practicing the employment of the CSTO troops (Collective Forces)," the chief of the bloc’s Joint Staff said.
Also, the Combat Brotherhood-2021 operational and strategic drills that will run in the autumn of this year will embrace five joint special exercises that will cover the Central Asian region, the general said.
In particular, the Rubezh-2021 (Frontier-2021) drills will take place on the territory of Kyrgyzstan while Tajikistan will host the Echelon-2021 exercise with the CSTO logistics forces, the Poisk-2021 (Search-2021) drills with the bloc’s reconnaissance forces and the Interaction-2021 maneuvers with the organization’s Collective Operational Response Forces. Meanwhile, the Unbreakable Brotherhood-2021 joint exercise with the organization’s peacekeeping forces will run on the territory of Russia.
The Coordination Conference was chaired by Head of the State Duma Committee for Defense Vladimir Shamanov. It was also attended by the heads and representatives of the CSTO Secretariat, the CSTO Joint Staff, the Secretariat of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, the Defense Ministry of Russia, the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Interior Ministry and the Emergencies Ministry of Russia.