MOSCOW, June 16. /TASS/. Western countries pursue aggressive information policy against the member-states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the post-Soviet security bloc’s Secretary-General Stanislav Zas told a meeting of the organization’s Council of Parliamentary Assembly.
Political and military tensions have been on the rise in the eastern European direction, Zas noted. "The line towards the region’s militarization and developing military infrastructure continues. The information aggression by certain Western states intensifies," the CSTO chief said.
One of destabilizing factors is massive military drills of the North-Atlantic Alliance carried out near the borders of Belarus and Russia, Defender Europe-2020, he noted.
The United States planned to use more than 28,000 troops, 287 tanks, 449 armored personnel carriers and 95 helicopters in these drills. Another 17 countries planned to create their contingents and five multinational units were expected to be sent by the joint NATO forces in Europe. However, the plans were reviewed over the coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier, the Russian General Staff noted that NATO member-states practiced striking targets on the territory of Russia during the Defender-Europe 20 drills near the Russian borders. Moreover, during the preparations for the drills the attempts were recorded to bypass the provisions of the Vienna Document by splitting major maneuvers into smaller ones and also involving neutral states into the maneuvers.