Valdai Club

On February 9, the Valdai Discussion Club, with the support of the Russian Foreign Ministry, will hold a conference titled "Collective Security in a New Era: Experience and Prospects of the CSTO". The event will be held open to the media at the Moscow headquaters of the Club at Tsvetnoy Boulevard, 16/1.

Programme of the conference of the

Valdai Discussion Club with the support of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

“Collective Security in a New Era: Experience and Prospects of the CSTO ”

Moscow, February 9, 2022

10:00–12:00 Session I. CSTO Challenges in the Face of Growing International Tensions: A View from Capitals

Regional conflicts tend to escalate in the face of growing international imbalances and instability. The scenarios for these aggravations are quite diverse, which requires especially painstaking and careful work on the part of the associations responsible for ensuring national and regional security. A separate issue is the coordination of interests and readiness to cooperate on a wide range of issues that may not affect all allies, but only part of them. How do the capitals of member states see the most urgent tasks of the CSTO, how full is the upcoming agenda?

Speakers:

• Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club;

• Aleksandr Pankin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation;

• Stanislav Zas, CSTO Secretary-General;

• Armen Ghevondyan, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia;

• Marat Syzdykov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan;
  

• Nuran Niyazaliev, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic;

• Sodiq Imomi, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan;

• Vyacheslav Remenchik, Permanent and Plenipotentiary Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation.
  

Moderator:

• Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

13:00–14:30 Session II. Lessons of Crisis and Eurasian Security

The CSTO's lightning-fast operation in Kazakhstan, which helped quickly put an end to an attempt to seriously destabilize that state, was the first experience of its kind, but a very successful one. What lessons should be learned from this situation in the organization itself, as well as in other Eurasian states? To what extent can the CSTO become the nucleus of a broader "ecosystem" of security that could respond flexibly and diversely to the challenges ahead. And their range is extremely broad - from the consequences of events in Afghanistan to the impact of Middle Eastern processes on the Eurasian space, from the socio-economic shocks exacerbated by the pandemic to the unfriendly influence of competing global players.

Speakers:

• Nikolay Bordyuzha, CSTO Secretary-General (2003–2016);

• Rashid Alimov, SCO Secretary-General (2016–2018);

• Bulat Sultanov, Director of the Research Institute for International and Regional Cooperation at the German-Kazakh University;
  

• Kubatbek Rakhimov, Executive Director, Public Foundation "Appliqata - Center for Strategic Solutions"; Advisor to the Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic (2019–2020); 

• Sanzhar Valiev, Deputy Director, Deputy Director of Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan;

• Nelson Wong, Vice Chairman, Shanghai Centre for RimPac Strategic and International Studies.
  

Moderator:

• Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club; Academic Supervisor of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).