MOSCOW. Sept 18 (Interfax-AVN) - Lieutenant General Vasily Zavgorodniy of the Russian Armed Forces has been appointed first deputy chief of the Unified Headquarters of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, press secretary of the organization Alexander Orlov said on Thursday.
"The Russian defense minister's order reads that Lieutenant General Vasily Zavgorodniy is appointed first deputy chief of the Unified Headquarters upon coordination with the defense ministers of the nations participating in the Collective Security Treaty Organization," Orlov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The first deputy chief of the Unified Headquarters will effectively manage the headquarters' routine activity. The Moscow- based headquarters will permanently employ over 50 servicemen representing the armed forces of the organization's member nations.
"The Unified Headquarters will also supervise the rapid- deployment forces and work out proposals for setting up the military component of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, including regional collective security bodies," Orlov said.
He recalled that Major General Ramil Nadyrov, chief-of-staff of the Tajik Armed Forces, was elected chief of the Unified Headquarters for this year at the Dushanbe session of the Collective Security Council in April 2003.
Zavgorodniy is 54 years old. He graduated from the Frunze Military Academy in 1975 and General Staff Academy in 1988. For a long time, he held various posts in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, once heading one of the General Staff's leading directorates. From 2001 to 2002, he worked as department chief and deputy chief of the CIS military cooperation coordination headquarters.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
The Collective Rapid-Deployment Forces in Central Asia were set up by a decision of the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan made in Yerevan on May 25, 2001. The forces consist of four detached battalions and number about 1,500 people.