Summit in Minsk: Putin looks irrelevant and out of date

Whoever scripted this week’s summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation in Minsk, they clearly gave Russia’s President Putin the role of an extra.

The lead role was played by Kazakh President Kasymzhomart Tokayev – it is he who spoke about the CSTO’s future priorities and even called for changing its rhetoric and image.

Putin’s brief remarks were all empty cliches. He completely avoided current issues (either concerning the CSTO, or international), nor did he have anything to say about the future.

Putin looked back, reminding those gathered about the upcoming 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory in WWII.  

On the podium set up for a group photo – where each leader stands in front of their national flag – Russia was not given the central spot. Putin was one before last on the right.

The current CSTO’s secretary general is former Kazakh prime minister Imangali Tasmagambetov. Kazakhstan is also taking over the rotating chairmanship of the organisation in 2024.

In the past, the role of ‘chairman’ country was seen as a formality. This time, the Kazakh leader appeared to be taking it ‘seriously’.

President Tokayev said in Minsk that one of the organisation’s priorities next year should be expansion of its cooperation with the UN, other CIS countries and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Tokayev also called for the CSTO’s legal base to be “improved” so it allows “rapid deployment” of collective forces – “unhindered and non-stop transit of troops, and free movement of air forces”.

The Kazakh leader also called for “focusing” on developing the organisation’s peacekeeping potential.

In an apparent jab at the Kremlin’s traditional official rhetoric when it comes to security cooperation within the post-Soviet space, Tokayev also said that “there is no need to constantly talk about growing threats to the CSTO member countries’ security, even if they [threats] do exist”.

“After all, such threats have always been there,” he said.

Tokayev added that such statements could be “interpreted completely incorrectly” and “create an illusion that we are afraid of someone”.

He said the CSTO’s “rhetoric must be firm”, given the member countries’ “joint military and political might and potential”.

This could suggest that Tokayev wants the CSTO to move away from being a Kremlin project designed to keep ex-Soviet countries under its wings by constantly reminding them about security threats, to becoming a ‘real’ joint security mechanism.

The Kremlin’s own report on the CSTO summit was, like Putin’s speech, brief and cliched.

It said the meeting discussed “key issues of interaction” between the member countries, “including further improvement of the collective security system”, and also “topical international and regional problems”.

The Kremlin website provided the text of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s speech at the event, and then Putin’s speech.

Putin’s speech was maximally formal and devoid of any message at all.

He said that over the past year CSTO members had taken measures to strengthen cooperation and concluded by saying that their “joint activity” within the organisation “promotes unity among our states and peoples and keeps alive the memory of our shared history and achievements”.

“I am sure, we all are going to get ready for a proper celebration in 2025 of the 80thanniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War,” Putin said.

The summit was also attended by the Kyrgyz and Tajik leaders.

Armenia is another member, but President Nikola Pashinian has been avoiding meetings involving Russia over the latter’s failure to back Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan over the Nagornyy Karabakh region.

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