Despite Frozen Membership, CSTO Continues to Consider Armenia an Ally
In response to the Armenian Foreign Intelligence Service’s 2025 annual report on “External Security Risks to Armenia,” the CSTO has stated that it still considers Armenia an ally, as it did before. This was reported by Russia’s TASS news agency.
The CSTO added that they continue to work with Yerevan in a routine manner.
In its report published on January 23, the Armenian Foreign Intelligence Service noted that “the CSTO’s inability (ineffectiveness) to address the challenges in the South Caucasus that align with the CSTO’s charter objectives is unlikely to change in 2025. We assess it as unlikely that the grounds for Armenia’s suspension of CSTO membership will be eliminated in 2025. In our view, this means that the credibility of this security organization will continue to remain significantly in doubt, serving as a source of conclusions for other member states.”
Armenia has announced that it is freezing its participation in CSTO activities, has refused to allocate its share of funding to the organization, and has refrained from participating in joint military exercises and meetings for a long time. However, it has not officially initiated the process of withdrawing from the CSTO.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during the Second World Armenian Summit last September, stated that the CSTO poses threats to Armenia’s security, as well as to its continued existence, sovereignty, and statehood.
Relations with the CSTO have especially deteriorated since Azerbaijan’s attack in September 2022. Despite Yerevan’s demands, the CSTO has not yet condemned the attack on its member state Armenia and has not acknowledged that Azerbaijan has occupied territories from Armenia.
In response, Yerevan rejected the CSTO’s proposal to deploy observers along the border. In 2024, Prime Minister Pashinyan also declared that Armenia’s membership in the alliance is de facto frozen, and it may also be frozen de jure if allies do not change their position.