The State Duma has ratified a number of protocols amending the CSTO Charter.

At a plenary session on July 24, 2019, the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation has ratified the protocols amending the Charter of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), specifying, among other things, the powers of the observer states.
According to TASS news agency, now the Collective Security Council may include not only heads of state, but also heads of government, if allowed by the national legislation.
Another protocol provides that countries outside the CSTO, as well as “international organizations interested in studying the open normative legal framework, experience and practice of the CSTO,” may obtain the observer status without undertaking to participate in practical CSTO activities. States and organizations ready to participate in them will be able to obtain the status of a CSTO partner.
Another document replaces the post of plenipotentiary representative to the CSTO with the post of permanent and plenipotentiary representative and introduces the post of deputy Secretary General of the CSTO. Privileges and immunities are established not only for the CSTO Secretary General and his family members, but also for his deputies and their family members, as provided for by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961, if they are not citizens of the host State. These changes are made to the agreement on the legal status of the CSTO.
The Protocols were signed by the Presidents of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan in Astana on November 8, 2018.
​