Military men from KazakhstanAzerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan will exercise at the Oymash training ground in Kazakhstan and on Cape Tokmak on the Caspian Sea.
Representatives of the ministries of defense participating in the exercises announced the participation of a total of one thousand soldiers who will use, among others tanks, infantry vehicles, fighters and ships.
The maneuver scenario assumes: combat operations, logistics and medical assistance. The Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan indicates that the marines and special forces will, among other things, “recapture” the island occupied by “terrorist groups”.
The ministry also indicated that the maneuvers were a priority “Birlestik-2024” there will be cooperation between the forces of various countries, improvement of management and command, exchange of experiences and increasing the professionalism of military personnel.
An alliance of five countries. “The beginning of a new era”
As the Azerbaijani STEM think tank points out, the format of exercises within the framework of cooperation between five countries has been promoted for a long time. The key moment was when the cooperating countries established closer, bilateral relations military relations z Turkey.
Think tank analysts emphasize that in Central Asia “new emerging alliance” may become “a guarantee of defending sovereignty all participating countries.
“It is the beginning of a new era of two historical regions of the South Caucasus and Central Asiawhere military integration is now added to the developing processes of political and economic integration between regions, which will be of great importance in the fight against great-power countries,” emphasizes STEM.
Moreover, according to analysts, the country that drives integration in the five-state bloc is Azerbaijan, and one of the main assumptions is transport security in the Trans-Caspian routetherefore, as part of the exercises, soldiers will also focus on transport infrastructure.
“In this way Central Corridor it becomes not only the main logistic route, but also essentially acts as the driving force of a new military-political oriented bloc not the Collective Security Treaty Organization, but the NATO format” – indicates STEM in the analysis.
Kazakhstan turns away from Russia?
The “Birlestik-2024” exercises did not attract the attention of Moscow. Russians are primarily concerned about the attitude of Kazakhstan, which has so far cooperated with the Kremlin but has not been invited Russia for the exercises proves that Moscow's influence in the region is weakening, also in the context of relations with its neighbor.
– (Kazakhstan – ed.) maintains a favorable attitude towards our country. But at the same time it allows certain actions that, if not directed against Russia, may in any case be ambiguous interpretation. This applies to both relations with the West and military exercises, emphasized Vladimir Shapavalov, a Russian pro-Kremlin political scientist, in the “General Gazeta of the Leningrad Oblast”.
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