The wider significance lies in what the standoff reveals about Russian influence across the former Soviet space.
Vladimir Putin chairs a session of the Collective Security Council of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Moscow on Wednesday, with the Kremlin's strained relationship with Armenia set to dominate proceedings. According to Al Jazeera, Armenia's participation in the Russia-dominated military bloc has been frozen since February 2024, after Yerevan concluded that the organisation had failed it during its war with Azerbaijan.
The grievance is specific. During the 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh, neither Russia nor the other member states — Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — deployed troops to aid Armenia, despite a charter that envisages such assistance. Azerbaijan, which left the CSTO in 1999, meanwhile used weaponry procured from Russia in billions of dollars, alongside Turkish and Israeli drones. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on 5 November that "our interest in the CSTO has run its course", while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged last week that Armenia "de facto doesn't participate in the CSTO's operations".
The wider significance lies in what the standoff reveals about Russian influence across the former Soviet space. Alisher Ilkhamov, head of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence think tank, told Al Jazeera that Yerevan's timing is useful because Russia is absorbed by its war in Ukraine and weakened by sanctions, Ukrainian strikes on economic infrastructure and a looming recession. Galiya Ibragimova, a Moldova-based expert on Central Asia, described moves to strip Armenia of voting rights as "a demonstrative whipping", predicting that other members — more dependent on Russia economically, or inclined to avoid poking the tiger — will keep quiet.
The Ukraine war itself offered a further test: none of the member states backed Moscow militarily. Regional states are meanwhile exploring other formats, including the Turkiye-led Organization of Turkic States, which includes Azerbaijan and three Central Asian nations. Al Jazeera reports joint drills in late September involving Uzbek, Azerbaijani and Turkish servicemen in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Caspian shore, and further exercises in October 2025 involving Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Moscow has also failed to persuade Uzbekistan to rejoin the bloc.
On the summit's agenda, Ruslan Suleymanov of the New Eurasian Strategies Centre told Al Jazeera that the only "real" item is Afghanistan, where Russian officials have warned that up to 23,000 fighters from more than 20 armed groups operate. ISIL in Khorasan Province, which claimed the 2024 Moscow concert hall attack that killed more than 140 people, recruits actively in Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan. CSTO states have this year boosted security on the 1,344km Afghan-Tajik border.
What the summit produces beyond statements is not yet known. Whether Armenia's freeze hardens into formal withdrawal, and whether pressure on Yerevan extends beyond the loss of voting rights, remains unconfirmed. Ilkhamov told Al Jazeera that Moscow's displeasure with disloyal Eurasian nations is so far expressed only verbally, and that in the near future it will be unable to take decisive steps to bridle the region.
