Personnel of the CSTO peacekeeping forces at the airportMOSCOW, January 15 CSTO forces flew out of Kazakhstan, the Ministry of Defense said.
"Units of Russian peacekeepers from the Collective Peacekeeping Forces of the CSTO in Kazakhstan loaded military equipment into VTA Il-76 and An-124 aircraft and flew out of Alma-Ata" ;, — the message says.
Fifteen Il-76s and three An-124s will deliver the personnel and equipment of the Airborne Forces units to airfields in the Ivanovo and Moscow regions. Then the peacekeepers will return to the points of permanent deployment. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the CSTO for help «in overcoming the terrorist threat» on January 5 after riots broke out in the country amid protests against a doubling of prices for liquefied gas. According to the UN, during the protests in Kazakhstan, about a thousand people were injured. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, 17 Kazakh security officials were killed, more than 1.3 thousand were injured. The CSTO Collective Security Council decided to send collective peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan to normalize the situation in the country. Military personnel from Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan took part in the operation. They were entrusted with the protection of strategically important facilities. On Thursday, January 13, the successful completion of the CSTO mission was announced, and peacekeepers from Armenia and Tajikistan returned home on Friday morning. .jpg» />CSTO peacekeepers from Belarus left Kazakhstan