This phase will be held on the premises of the organization’s Joint Staff in Moscow, ITAR-TASS reported.

“The participants will work out military and technological assistance to a member-state that may become the target of external aggression,” CSTO Deputy Secretary General Valery Semerikov said.

He said that the organization has settled all legal issues pertaining to assistance of this kind.

“When the presidents of member-states held a summit in the Tajiskitani capital Dushanbe last October, they signed a protocol on defense and technology aid to member-states in case of an emerging danger of aggression against it or an accomplished fact of aggression,” Semerikov said.

The CSTO held the first phase of Rubezh’2008 in Armenia in July. It focused on a mechanism of drafting proposals to the Collective Security Council on military and technological assistance to a country that became a target of aggression.

The program of the command post exercise also features a third stage that will be held in the Marshal Bagramian Center of the Armenian Defense Ministry.

Its program includes a defense operation in the format of a tactical exercise that will involve army units from Armenia, Russia and Tajikistan.

Sources at the CSTO Joint Staff said that unlike the previous exercises in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan, Rubezh’2008 does not engaged regular units reporting to Interior ministries, the ministries for emergency situations and national security services.

The explanation for this is that the previous exercises were antiterrorist ones and did not presuppose a repelling of external aggression.

The second phase of Rubezh’2008 involves a contingent of about 4,000 servicemen, howitzer and missile artillery, the army, frontline and interception aviation, air defense, engineering and signal units.

The CSTO embraces Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.