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“Hayots Ashkarh” daily has published an interview entitled “A disguised, insidious propaganda is being carried out in Armenia”, in which Coordinator of Eurasian Expert Club Aram Safaryan made a number of disinformation statements about CSTO membership and security.
In particular, Safaryan stated that in case there is threat to the security of Armenia, Russia “will use a nuclear bomb”, and it is also stipulated by the CSTO agreement.
In response to the relevant question by the journalist, Safaryan stated, “Of course there is such a provision in the CSTO Agreement, and not only a nuclear bomb but the whole military capacity will be used. There are weapons more powerful than the nuclear bomb in the modern world. Have no doubt that Russia will apply them”.
However, the Collective Security Agreement which Armenia signed in 1992 does not suppose the use of a nuclear bomb by Russia in case of existence of a threat to a CSTO member country from a third country.
Though the military doctrine of Russia [edited in 2014, clause 27] stipulates that “The Russian Federation reserves a right to use a nuclear weapon in case of use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction against Russia and (or) its allies”, this does not suggest that Russia is obliged to use a nuclear weapon in case of threat to CSTO member countries. It supposes such a right, and solely in case of threat of use of weapon of mass destruction (and not just an ordinary attack).
And of course, there is no such provision in the CSTO agreement. Besides, taking into consideration Russia’s double policy and the circumstance that Russia sells weapons both to Turkey and Azerbaijan, as well as regularly states that Azerbaijan is its strategic ally, it is difficult to say which country it will consider its “strategic ally”, referring to its own doctrine.
It is worth mentioning that this disinformation in the interview published by “Hayots Ashkharh” has also been translated into Russian and published in the inosmi.ru world news website of “Rossiya Segodnya” agency, which is considered the engine of Kremlin’s propaganda machine.
