One of the most reputable and well-known Russian publications, «Nezavisimaya Gazeta», responded to the refusal of the Republic of Armenia (RA) to use the quota allocated to it for the position of Deputy Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), of which it is a member. Yuri Roks in the article "Armenia staged a demarche in the CSTO" called it the second demarche of the RA against the CSTO, meaning that earlier the RA authorities refused to conduct military exercises of the CSTO on the territory of the republic (www.ng.ru/cis/2023-03-12/1_8677_armenia.html ) .
CSTO on the territory of the republic (www.ng.ru/cis/2023-03-12/1_8677_armenia.html ) .
The author of the article considers this behavior of Yerevan to be a reaction to the CSTO's indifferent attitude to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Distancing itself from the war in Karabakh under the pretext that the alliance cannot interfere in events outside the borders of the Republic of Armenia according to the charter, the leadership of the bloc could not explain its passivity when the war moved to the territory of the Republic itself.
And in fact, the article quite rightly notes that even when the resort town of Jermuk was shelled, and the Azerbaijani units went deep into Armenia, all requests from Yerevan for help remained unanswered. And only after the relative stabilization of the CSTO decided to create a commission to study the situation. Although, as noted in «Nezavisimaya Gazeta“ everything is obvious and without a commission - both evidence of the shelling of Jermuk, and the presence of the Azerbaijani army on the territory of Armenia, and the fact that Baku does not deny any of the above.” The CSTO, according to the author of the article, “only issued a lengthy statement, expressing routine concern, and called on the parties to restraint. However, even this statement, which is not very appropriate for the situation, was crossed out by the advice of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko to Yerevan - not to hope for help, since the CSTO will not quarrel with Baku, and quickly agree with President Ilham Aliyev, "otherwise it will be even worse."
The article raises the question: how ready are the members of the organization to take on practical responsibility to Armenia, that is, to go against Azerbaijan? There are no signs that the CSTO's position on the issues of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict is changing. Therefore, the actions of Yerevan in relation to the military-political bloc can be considered symmetrical and honest. Whether Moscow will feel the same way remains an open question. And this is not about the attempts of the Armenian side to manipulate the topic in order to obtain military support from the West in case of abandoning the CSTO. The West has set a very clear line of responsibility for the RA - to regulate relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey. But due to existing risk factors, he will not take responsibility for Armenia.
Concluding the review of the publication, we can say that the article provides a fairly adequate assessment of the actions of the CSTO and the role of the West in this conflict. But the question still remains in the air: what is Moscow going to do next?
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