Among closest allies, only Belarus backs Russia
President Vladimir Putin of Russia met with his five closest allies Monday. Only one of them spoke up to support him on Ukraine.
In a gilded hall at the Kremlin, Putin hosted a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which is Russia’s answer to NATO.
An alliance of six post-Soviet states, the CSTO was marking the 30-year anniversary of its founding.
But what was supposed to be a celebratory meeting quickly turned into a demonstration of Putin’s isolation, even among Russia’s neighbors.
Speaking first in the televised portion of the summit, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus — who has supported Putin’s war in Ukraine but has not sent troops — criticized other members of the alliance for not sufficiently backing Russia and Belarus in the face of Western sanctions.
He noted how the CSTO had sent forces to Kazakhstan in January to prop up the country’s government in the face of protests — yet had left Russia largely on its own amid the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan has said that it would not help Russia circumvent international sanctions.
In a United Nations vote March 2 condemning the invasion of Ukraine, Belarus was the only post-Soviet country to take Russia’s side.
“Look at how monolithically the European Union votes and acts,” Lukashenko said at Monday’s summit, sitting at a round table with the other leaders. “If we are separate, we’ll just be crushed and torn apart.”
As if to confirm Lukashenko’s point, the leaders of the other four CSTO members — Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — did not even mention Ukraine in their televised remarks.