Lavrov: CSTO does not blackmail anyone and makes no ultimatums to  anyone

ArmInfo."I do not think that the CSTO is just a military- political issue, it's just a big  integration policy, by and large, ensuring security in our common space in all its senses and dimensions - anti-terrorist, anti-drug, anti-crime." This was in an interview with RTR- Belarus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said when asked whether the CSTO, which celebrates its already long anniversary, has become an alternative and a counterweight to NATO in the post-Soviet space.

The anniversary is really important - 25 years to the Collective  Security Treaty and 15 years to the Organization of the very Treaty,  which now, according to the Russian Foreign Minister, has reached the  stage of its maturity. At the same time, the Russian minister added  that in the overwhelming majority of areas that were designated by  the heads of state, there is visible, meaningful and very significant  progress.

"As for comparisons with other military-political blocs and  structures, I do not see the need to pursue any reputation in  comparison specifically with NATO." We have somewhat different tasks:  by and large, NATO exists artificially. "After the Soviet Union  disappeared The Alliance and the Warsaw Pact, the Alliance lost its  sense of its existence, first of all, our overseas colleagues  supported the military-political bloc of the North Atlantic alliance  in an effort not to lose leverage over Europe. the tolov knows it and  has long since learned it. "The theme of Afghanistan was turned  around," in which NATO members for almost a decade kept the meaning  of their unity, and when the unifying theme disappeared, they had to  come up with something else. Then the Russian Federation "turned up"  as a country that defends their interests in close cooperation with  their allies in the space that all of us historically belong to. This  caused discontent, above all, by the fact that we did not agree with  the gross violation of the NATO agreements that were reached in the  1990s: security is indivisible, NATO will not expand to the East, and  subsequently as a compromise it was agreed that NATO's eastward  expansion would not be accompanied by the deployment of significant  combat forces in the new member countries, "Lavrov said. At the same  time, he added that all these agreements were grossly trampled by  NATO members, and they were already trying to put all Russian  neighbors in front of  a choice - either they are with Russia or with  the West.

"We have seen all this in Georgia, Ukraine, I hope that the CSTO will  not follow this path, we do not blackmail anyone and we do not make  any ultimatums to anyone, we are concerned about our own security in  the territory of the CSTO member countries. We have our own concerns,  and we are not trying to play geopolitical games, "Lavrov concluded.