MOSCOW, October 3. /TASS/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) kicked off an active phase of a series of drills for the bloc’s collective forces in Kazakhstan, the joint press center of the CSTO drills reported on Monday.
The active phase embraces the Interaction 2022 drills of the bloc’s Collective Operational Response Forces, the Search 2022 special maneuvers and the Echelon 2022 exercise, it specified.
"The year 2022 is characterized by a deterioration in the situation in all of the CSTO’s collective security regions. In these conditions, the CSTO [collective] forces must be constantly ready for accomplishing assigned missions, in particular, amid present-day proxy wars and armed conflicts with the enemy acting ‘under the false flag and with someone else’s hands," Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov said at the ceremony of opening the drills.
"Meanwhile, the CSTO’s development strategy attaches priority to political and diplomatic methods of settlement," he stressed.
Joint drills are the highest and the most effective form of training the bloc’s command centers and forces and a major stage of enhancing combat readiness and field skills, the general said.
In 2022, the CSTO is carrying out major joint training measures in the Central Asian region impacted by the situation in Afghanistan, "which continues to be tense and is characterized by an unstable and potential danger," he added.
"The CSTO Collective Operational Response Forces that mostly comprise units of the Airborne Force, air assault, motorized infantry, artillery and special operations forces will practice preparing and conducting a joint operation to localize an armed conflict in the Central Asian collective security region and, in particular, organizing and carrying out reconnaissance and providing logistics support. For the first time ever, a new joint radiological, chemical and biological protection and medical provision unit will be involved in practical exercises," Sidorov added.
CSTO drills
From September 26 to October 13, the CSTO is holding the Interaction 2022 command and staff drills with the bloc’s Collective Operational Response Forces, the Search 2022 special drills with reconnaissance squads and the Echelon 2022 exercise with logistics units. The active phase of the drills is running at the Matybulak training ground and will last through October 7.
The CSTO drills have brought together over 6,500 troops and more than 850 items of military and special hardware, including aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles. The Russian military contingent in the drills is mostly comprised of units of the Central Military District.