Medvedev said the collective rapid-reaction force created by the CSTO leaders at their summit “will be as good as that of NATO”.

Earlier, the CSTO leaders signed a document on the creation of the collective rapid reaction force. “We have approved a draft decision to form such collective force,” the president stated in the course of the CSTO plenary session, held after a narrow-format meeting of the presidents. “Everybody was unanimous about the need to resolve this problem,” he added.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan noted, in turn, “The formation of the collective rapid deployment force was intended to strengthen the CSTO military component. This will also help strengthen our potential,” he added.

Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko had earlier stated that the “CSTO collective rapid deployment force were to be used to repulse military aggression, to launch special operations against international terrorism and against forcible manifestations of extremism, as well as against trans-national organised crime, against drug trafficking, and to cope with the aftermaths of emergency situations of natural and industrial origin”.

He recalled that every CSTO member-nation now had its own rapid deployment force to be used in case of a common menace. “The distinctive feature of the CSTO collective rapid reaction force will be that they will have a permanent place of deployment on the territory of Russia, where the forces of the other countries are to be moved,” Prikhodko noted. “It will presumably be formed on the basis of the 98th Airborne Division and the 31st Airborne Assault Brigade,” he stated. “There is also an idea to hand over to them, at the final stage, the forces of the Ministry for Emergency Situations and, probably, of the Interior Ministry, too” the presidential aide stated. “We are now completing our work on a draft version of a corresponding agreement and we hope it will be signed,” he added.

The CSTO is a military-political alliance of seven countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was created on the basis of the Collective Security Treaty of the 15 May 1992, which was turned into an international organisation on 14 May 2002. The CSTO received the status of observer at the UN General Assembly on 2 December 2004, Itar-Tass reported.

The purpose of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation is to guarantee the national security of each of its members and to ensure their territorial integrity. In case of a menace, looming over any member-country, all the other CSTO participants will be duty-bound to give it all the necessary aid, including military assistance. The military-political relations among the CSTO nations hold supremacy over their military relations and contacts with third countries, which are not CSTO members.

The Treaty’s overall system of collective security includes some regional subsystems, acting in three directions: in the European direction (the Russo-Belarus military group) and in the Caucasian direction (the Russian-Armenian group).

One of the main CSTO tasks today is to form a collective peace-making force. The member states will form a peace-making contingent for operations both on the territory of the CSTO states and, whenever necessary, beyond their boundaries on the strength of a UN mandate.

The organisation’s work is to form its collective rapid reaction force. It will be a mobile force designed to respond to any critical developments and not only of military nature. It will be promptly used in case of any urgent necessity upon the authorisation of the Collective Security Council. The force will presumably include mobile units from the armed forces of the member states, special-purpose troops from their interior ministries, security services and the emergencies ministries.

Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said only a political decision had been made so far. A regulatory framework for its implementation will have to be drafted within three months.