Andrei Kartapolov: Parliamentarians’ presence at the CSTO southern frontier is a response to the demand for security from the citizens of our countries

“It is very important that representatives of our parliaments participate in such events because we express the interests of all our voters, and therefore all our people,” said Andrei Kartapolov, Chairman of the Defence Committee of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, recalling that “today Russia and its society, has a serious demand to understand and know what is happening in our south, at our southern borders.”
As a member of the Coordination Council of Chairpersons of Committees (Commissions) on Defence and Security of the Parliaments of the CSTO Member States under the CSTO PA Council, Andrei Kartapolov for the first time participated in the monitoring of the military and political situation in the Central Asian region during the active phase of the joint exercise of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) in Tajikistan.
“What we have seen here today is very encouraging; we have seen that the CSTO Collective Rapid Deployment Force is able to perform tasks in absolutely any area and under any conditions. As someone who is involved in military service, I cannot but note the high level of military training, field training and interaction that was demonstrated during this exercise,” stressed the Chairman of the Defence Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
Parliaments of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Member States – the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan – participate in the Vzaimodeistvie 2021 exercise.
As you may recall, one of the areas of parliamentary monitoring of the military and political situation in the CSTO collective security regions is the participation of parliamentarians as observers in joint exercises of the CSTO Troops (Collective Forces) to identify needs for improving the regulatory support for the military security of the CSTO Member States.
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