The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), , is not fully ready to respond to hybrid attacks, the organization’s secretary general, the Russia-led military bloc secretary-general Stanislav Zas said on Sunday.
"Is the CSTO ready to repel such attacks, hybrid attacks? I would say no. The CSTO is not fully ready for such response," he said in an interview with Belarus’s ONT television channel.
Zas noted that the CSTO “was established as a purely military-political organization to repel military threats.” “Over the twenty years of its existence, naturally, a serious transformation has taken place. We are turning into a comprehensive platform to ensure security of our states," he added.
Citing examples of methods used in hybrid attacks, Zas listed terrorist threats, “drug trafficking, crime, including in the sphere of information and communications technologies.”
"The sphere of cooperation between our states is expanding, as is the sphere of the CSTO’s activity. We are not yet ready but, as a matter of fact, we are moving toward it," he stressed.
Hybrid threats combine military and non-military as well as covert and overt means, including disinformation, cyber attacks, economic pressure, deployment of irregular armed groups and use of regular forces.
Created in 1992, the Collective Security Treaty Organization is a Russia-led military alliance grouping the six former Soviet republics of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
