Good News For Belarus
- Vyacheslav Korosten
- 12.11.2026, 14:33
Armenia has set an example.
The latest meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council, held in Moscow on November 11, would have been unremarkable were it not for the decision regarding Armenia. The South Caucasus country was sanctioned for violating the organization’s charter, and this carries significant symbolic weight.
Yerevan has been a mere token member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) for nearly three years now. In February 2024, after complaining about its allies’ inaction during the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, the country’s leadership suspended its participation in the organization. It immediately stopped attending its meetings.
On June 2, 2024, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan even announced Armenia’s possible withdrawal from the bloc.
Much time has passed since then, and Yerevan has not wasted a moment. On the one hand, it stopped paying dues to the CSTO—thereby violating one of the fundamental provisions of the charter. On the other hand, they have openly pursued a course of close cooperation with the European Union.
Both of these moves were de facto endorsed by the Armenian people in the parliamentary elections of June 2026. Pashinyan’s “Civic Contract” party secured a decisive victory at that time. The pro-Russian opposition remained in the minority. At a victory press conference, the head of the Armenian government stated that the country would continue to move closer to the EU.
A chronic defaulter was reprimanded
Failing to pay dues for more than two years—such a blatant evasion of obligations is subject to severe sanctions in any organization. However, in the CSTO, which positions itself as an “alternative to NATO,” the rules turned out to be surprisingly lenient.
For a long time, the organization simply turned a blind eye to the misconduct of one of its member states. And only now, at the summit on November 11, did they decide to give the chronic defaulter a mild reprimand—stripping it of its voting rights at meetings in which it does not participate anyway.
It is telling that the discussion of the Armenian debtor’s “personal case” was not shown during the live broadcast of the summit. What was said, how they voted—all of this remained off-camera.
Even Alexander Lukashenko, who loves to lecture Pashinyan, did not mention the Armenian issue in his speech, instead rattling off from a script the traditional propaganda narratives about the “militarization of the West” and Russia’s correct position on the settlement in Ukraine.
The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov briefly reported on Armenia’s loss of voting rights.
“The topic was raised,” he said. “A decision was made. Since Armenia has failed to fulfill its obligations for several years now, in accordance with the organization’s charter, it was proposed and decided to strip Armenia of its voting rights, as well as its right to appoint representatives to key positions within the CSTO.”
At the same time, the organization’s Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov was quick to assure during a brief briefing that “the issue of expelling Armenia from the CSTO was not on the table.” He added that Yerevan, “as soon as it decides to pay off its arrears in contributions, may be reinstated in terms of sending its staff and participating in the work of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.”
“‘Our interests regarding the CSTO have been exhausted’
It was clear from the start that the mountain would give birth to a mouse. Representatives of the alliance’s member states—primarily Russian, of course—had announced precisely this restriction regarding Armenia. After assessing the threats, Pashinyan effectively brushed them aside. “I want us to make it clear once and for all: our interests regarding the CSTO have run their course. We are no longer interested in the CSTO,” the prime minister declared. And instead of going to Moscow, he traveled to Turkey—to the 31st UN Climate Change Conference.
Through its disregard for the CSTO, Yerevan is sending at least two messages to the outside world.
First, it is an assessment of the organization itself, which not only failed to come to Armenia’s aid in the Karabakh conflict but also, in principle, serves no clear purpose. Defense? Against whom? Who, for example, is threatening Kazakhstan? Collective defense? Can one really say this about the CSTO, which was established in 1992 but has managed to bring only six post-Soviet states into its fold over the past third of a century?
At the same time, the question remains open as to how much genuine unity there is among its members. For example, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, despite being CSTO allies, were unable for many years to resolve a conflict along their shared border—it even escalated to armed clashes resulting in deaths and injuries. And yet the Russian Federation is at war with Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces regularly attack Russian territory with drones, or even infiltrate the aggressor’s territory with sabotage groups and entire units? And what does the CSTO do? Nothing. At best, the bloc’s member states view the war as Russia’s internal affair.
Second, Armenia is clearly not afraid of Russia itself. It’s certainly cautious: Pashinyan holds meetings with Vladimir Putin, and the country remains a member of the EAEU and the CIS… Yet there’s no sign of obsequious subservience (unlike Belarus).
This was particularly evident during the summer parliamentary elections. As usual, the Kremlin stirred up trouble at the time by promoting candidates favorable to itself; the ruling authorities didn’t stand on ceremony with the “fifth column,” and in response, Russia merely stopped buying cognac and mineral water from Armenia.
And Putin, along with Lukashenko, didn’t congratulate Pashinyan on his victory. Pashinyan was apparently so offended that he downed a glass of his saved-up “Ararat” to drown his sorrows.
A Sign for Belarus
The example of Armenia shows that it’s possible to remain in Moscow’s orbit for a long time, then begin to break away from that orbit, and receive nothing but disgruntled grumbling in response. It is important to note this when assessing Yerevan’s move specifically from a Belarusian perspective.
Of course, Belarus is not Armenia, and in Putin’s eyes, they represent different geopolitical values. The South Caucasus is an important region for the Kremlin, one it wishes to control, but not one for which it necessarily needs to engage in a harsh confrontation. Yes, in 2008 the Russian army invaded Georgia, but again, it did not go beyond the occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia—neither then nor later.
Belarus (as well as Ukraine, of course) is a fundamentally different matter. These are sacred territories for Russian imperialists, whom they consider their own within the framework of the myth of the “triune people.” These territories are worth fighting for—as we have been witnessing for many years on Ukrainian soil.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin will not win his war against Ukraine. His “second-best army in the world” is hopelessly bogged down in the Donbas, and instead of a triumphant march into the Zaporizhzhia region, it has only spawned a humiliating meme about “Little Tokmachka.” In the current stalemate, Russia is trying to tie down the enemy by launching airstrikes on cities with civilian populations, but even this brings the aggressor nothing but sadistic pleasure.
Is the weakening of Russia as a result of the war not exactly what we are witnessing right now? And this is true both on the Ukrainian front lines and within allied organizations such as the CSTO. For Belarus, this can be seen as a sign of a future in which the country will finally manage to break free from the Kremlin’s stranglehold.
Naturally, this will happen only after Lukashenko’s departure—the chief architect of Minsk’s monstrous dependence on Moscow, a loyal and long-standing vassal of the Kremlin who equates state sovereignty exclusively with the sovereignty of his own regime.
Vyacheslav Korosten, “Pozirk”