Units of special forces from CSTO-member states, also including Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, will gather in Russia’s Siberian city of Novosibirsk on August 14 for three-day drills codenamed Cobalt-2024.
Organizers did not mention Armenia among the participants of the planned exercise at the Rosgvardiya training center with the stated purpose of improving cooperation among special forces units of the participating nations.
Armenia has been boycotting all CSTO events for the past two years or so after accusing the Russian-led military alliance of failing to defend its territorial integrity in border clashes with Azerbaijan in September 2022.
Yerevan rejected the CSTO proposal to deploy its observers along the border until the bloc explicitly recognized the fact of the Azerbaijani invasion and occupation of hundreds of square kilometers of sovereign Armenian territory.
Earlier this year Armenian Prime Minister Pashinian said that Yerevan had “frozen” its membership in the CSTO and could quit it altogether unless it changed its position on the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute. He also said that two members of the alliance had helped Azerbaijan prepare for the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, without naming them. Pashinian is believed to have referred to Russia and Belarus.
In separate moves indicative of the existing rifts between Armenia and its formal allies, Armenia in June downgraded its diplomatic relations with Belarus and earlier demanded that Russian border guards leave Yerevan’s Zvartnots international airport.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pashinian agreed on the withdrawal when the two leaders met in Moscow in May. On July 31, Russian border guards left the Yerevan airport after 32 years of deployment there following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday that the Russian officers who left the airport continued their service at Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Iran. The NSS refused to name the number of such officers, citing the classified nature of this information.
Russia also has a military base in the South Caucasus country. In March, a senior Russian lawmaker said he “would not recommend that the Armenian authorities even think about” demanding an end to the Russian military presence. Pashinian has signaled no such plans so far.
(With reporting by Shoghik Galstian)