Russia announced that it will be leading a CSTO peacekeeping deployment to Kazakhstan along with forces from Armenia, Belarus, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan to provide security to critical infrastructure until the situation stabilizes as the country faces widespread civil unrest over rising gas prices that ultimately resulted in the current government resigning.
THE CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance in Eurasia that consists of select post-Soviet states. The treaty had its origins in the Soviet Armed Forces, which was gradually replaced by the United Armed Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On 15 May 1992, six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—signed the Collective Security Treaty (also referred to as the Tashkent Pact or Tashkent Treaty).
Three other post-Soviet states—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia—signed in 1993 and the treaty took effect in 1994. In 1999, six of the nine—all but Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—agreed to renew the treaty for five more years. In 2002 those six agreed to create the Collective Security Treaty Organization as a military alliance.
