Post-Soviet security bloc to discuss setting up joint air, missile defense system

YEKATERINBURG, November 17. /TASS/. Chiefs of General Staff are due to gather for the first extended meeting of the Military Committee of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s Urals, on Monday to discuss security challenges. “The first extended session of the CSTO Military Committee with participation of plenipotentiary envoys of the CSTO member-states is due to be held on November 17 in Yekaterinburg on the base command of the Central Military District headed by Army General Valery Gerasimov, who is the chairman of the Military Committee, the chief of the General Staff and the first deputy defense minister,” CSTO spokesman Vladimir Zainetdinov said. The meeting, to be attended by CSTO Secretary General Nikolai Bordyuzha, is expected to focus on establishing a joint system of air and missile defense of the CSTO and organizing management of the Collective forces of the bloc. The parties will also sum up major joint operations and training this year and measures to improve training of troops of the CSTO member-states at military institutions. The chiefs of General Staff are expected to test modern multimedia while observing the training of groups of strategic forces of the Central Military District, an official spokesman for the district, Col. Yaroslav Roschupkin said. “The issues of conducting multi-service force groupings during simultaneous actions during air and missile strikes and fire causing damage to all targets” are to be worked out during the training, he said. The Military Committee, established under the auspices of the CSTO Council of defense ministers, consists of chiefs of General Staff of member-states and the head of CSTO Joint Staff, Lt. Gen. Alexander Studenikin. The CSTO, established in 1992, is comprised of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In 2002, the six post-Soviet states agreed to create the CSTO as a military alliance. Read more