BALYKCHY (Kyrgyzstan), 9 Sep-RIA Novosti. The CSTO is ready to repel any possible threats coming from Afghanistan, Anatoly Sidorov, the head of the Joint Staff of the organization, said on Thursday in response to a question from RIA Novosti.
“Now the whole world is worried about how the situation in and around Afghanistan will develop. We all know that there are member States of our organization that directly border Afghanistan… I think our task is to be ready for any development of the situation. Therefore, the corresponding topic of the exercises was determined. Basically, it is aimed at combating the terrorist threat. We did not forget that there are problems on the border of our states with Afghanistan. It's unstable there. The CSTO is ready to repel any threats,” he said during the Rubezh - 2021 exercises in Kyrgyzstan.
Speaking about the exercises themselves, the chief of the joint Staff stressed that they were successful and deserve high praise.
” Both the management bodies and the personnel showed a high level of training, coherence, everyone tried to show their best qualities, and according to my assessment, it was successful, " Sidorov summed up.
The next CSTO exercises will be held in Tajikistan in October in the immediate vicinity of the border with Afghanistan, Sidorov said.
"In addition to the collective rapid deployment forces, we have rapid reaction forces - this is an even more powerful component of our organization. With it, we will conduct exercises in October at the training grounds of Tajikistan in the immediate vicinity of the borders with Afghanistan," he said.
The active phase of the joint exercises of the Collective Rapid Deployment Forces of the Central Asian Region of Collective Security of the CSTO “Rubezh-2021” took place at the Edelweiss training ground on the coast of Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan. During the exercises, the participants conducted a joint counter-terrorism operation and practically worked out the issues of preparing and conducting combat operations to destroy illegal armed groups that invaded the territory of a conditional CSTO member state.
Military contingents and operational groups of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, the Joint Staff and the CSTO Secretariat, special purpose units of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the border service take part in the exercises” Rubezh-2021". In total - more than 1000 people and 150 units of military and special equipment, including multiple launch rocket systems, aircraft-Su-30SM fighters, Su-25 attack aircraft and Mi-8 helicopters and Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles.
