MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. The situation in the area of responsibility of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) remains complicated and tense, Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov said at a press conference on Tuesday.

"The situation in the area of responsibility of the Collective Security Treaty Organization is unfortunately complicated and tense," he said, "The main source of challenges and threats to military security is the destructive activities of some Western elites seeking to undermine the situation around the organization and within its individual member states."

Sidorov noted that the organization remained focused on "moving NATO offensive infrastructure close to the western borders of Belarus and Russia, the growing military activity against the background of aggressive rhetoric of the Baltic states and the Ukrainian crisis." "In this context, the attempts of individual states to strengthen their own positions in the Caucasus, gain access to the resources of the Caspian Sea and direct access to Central Asia, given the high conflict potential on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, contribute to the escalation of the crisis in the Caucasus region of collective security," he added.

At the same time, the CSTO Joint Chief of Staff stressed that Washington's support for international terrorism created tension in the Central Asian region. "At the same time, the support of the United States for international terrorism, the broad expansion of radical ideas using new methods of propaganda and the active involvement of young people in extremist activities provoke the emergence of new hotbeds of tension in Central Asia," he continued, "In the end, the West's deliberate provocation of crises and military conflicts, the organization of color revolutions, support for terrorist structures, and the use of economic sanctions against unwanted countries contribute to the formation of a belt of instability around its member states.".