Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted a meeting of the Russian-led military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), on Monday to mark the 30th anniversary of its founding, but the meeting was anything but celebratory .
Instead, the heads of state of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which make up the collective defense organization, similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, traveled to the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday to lament the world’s response to Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, seated in a massive room with high ceilings and ornate, gold-covered walls, complained about the West’s “hellish” sanctions and efforts to isolate Russia and Belarus – which supported Putin’s military moves in Ukraine – from the rest of the world.
“Belarus and Russia … are defamed and excluded from international organizations at the whim of the West,” Lukashenko said.
In a joint statement, the CSTO also said it was concerned about the “external borders of the CSTO”, noting that it stood “ready to ensure border security”.
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But Lukashenko has complained that members of the alliance have not rallied behind Russia as much as they should, especially as Russia struggles to cope with NATO expansion, a common argument that Russian officials and allies use to justify the war in Ukraine. In a likely reference to Finland and Sweden expressing interest in joining NATO, Lukashenko called for more support as NATO threats continue, from “NATO saber near our western borders to a full-scale Hybrid War unleashed against us,” according to Interfax.
“Russia should not fight NATO enlargement alone,” he said.
Putin himself complained of a “frantic surge of Russophobia in supposedly civilized and politically correct Western countries”, and promised that NATO enlargement would “certainly elicit a response from us. We let’s see what it will look like depending on the threats that are created for us.
Putin also demanded that his counterparts do more for Russia in the future, citing what he claimed was “documentary evidence” found during the invasion of Ukraine which he said showed “weapons components organic products have been developed close to our borders”.
To respond to these alleged bioweapons threats — threats that Putin said Russia had been facing for some time — Putin rallied CSTO members at the meeting to agree to demonstrate their combined military might by staging joint CSTO exercises this fall in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“Efforts to maintain biosecurity also require the most serious attention,” he said.
Putin also seemed to push his counterparts to back up his false justification for carrying out the “special” military operation in Ukraine – to denazify the country.
“I would like to emphasize our priority task of jointly defending the memory of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the feat of our peoples who saved the world from Nazism at the cost of enormous and irreparable sacrifices, and to thwart any attempt to whitewash the Nazis, their modern accomplices and supporters,” Putin said, noting that he thinks Ukrainians glorify Nazis at the state level.
After the summit, the group noted in a statement that other countries criticized Russia’s false claim that it invaded Ukraine in an attempt to denazify the country, insisting that was the goal. of war, rather than a false pretext to invade.
We “strongly condemn any attempt to falsify historical events related to our joint contribution to the fight against Nazi aggression,” the CSTO said in a statement. “We express serious concerns about attempts to ban symbols associated with the Victory over Nazism.”
The Putin-centric feast of mercy comes as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its 82nd day, with no end in sight – the US Defense Intelligence Agency assessed last week that the war, which has shifted to l eastern Ukraine, has almost reached a “dead end”. ”
Putin’s army continues to wade through Ukraine. On Monday, Russian forces lost 27,700 soldiers, the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in an analysis on Monday.
But even if the fighting reaches a protracted state, the Biden administration is still focused on providing security assistance to Ukraine to help thwart Russian attacks. The administration has already provided $300 million in security assistance to Ukraine this fiscal year, with more expected soon.
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Putin’s CSTO Mercy Party has deplored the West’s military aid to Ukraine, which the US Department of Defense says has aided Ukrainian resistance to Russian advances in the war.
“So far in the West, including in Washington, we only see a desire to prolong the conflict as much as possible,” Lukashenko said, referring to military aid. “The objectives are clear: to weaken Russia as much as possible.”
Nevertheless, aid should continue to flow. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed other weapons and security assistance during a meeting this weekend in Berlin with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. And later this week, the Senate is expected to vote on $40 billion in aid to Ukraine, Senate Republican Leader Mitch MicConnell said Saturday.
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