Post-Soviet military bloc to hold drills in three member states in 2017

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) plans to hold large-scale collective forces’ drills dubbed Combat Brotherhood on the territory of Armenia, Kazakhstan and Russia in October 2017, Chief of the CSTO Joint Staff Colonel-General Anatoly Sidorov said on October 7, TASS reports.

“This year, four CSTO exercises have been held on the territory of various states and at different time. Next year, we’re planning to unite the maneuvers and hold them under a single scenario simultaneously with all the components of the CSTO collective forces. So far, the name Combat Brotherhood has been proposed for the drills,” Sidorov said.

The CSTO’s unified drills will be held in October 2017. “That is, we won’t hold drills separately in April, August, September and October as was the case this year and in October 2017 we’ll practice joint measures within a short period of time on the territory of three states: Russia, Armenia and Kazakhstan. This will be more efficient to optimize the joint system of the CSTO collective forces’ control,” he said.

“The drills will approximately last three weeks and a counter-terror operation will be devised under a single scenario: first reconnaissance, then the use of the rapid response collective forces with the support of aviation and then the post-conflict settlement with the employment of peace-keeping forces. This will be an experiment,” the colonel-general said.

The CSTO rapid response collective forces comprise over 17,000 servicemen from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. These troops allow adequately responding to all existing challenges and threats – to counter terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking. The CSTO peacekeeping forces comprise about 3,600 servicemen.

The CSTO’s joint tactical maneuvers Rubezh-2016 have ended on the territory of Kyrgyzstan on Friday. The drills involved over 1,000 troops from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. No more exercises of the CSTO collective forces are planned this year. (TASS)