MOSCOW. Dec 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian Defense Minister Serhei Ivanov has appointed Lieutenant General Vasily Zavgorodniy first deputy chief of the Unified Headquarters of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), press secretary of the CSTO Secretariat Alexander Orlov said on Monday.
"Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has appointed 12 officers of the Russian Armed Forces to various posts in the Unified HQ of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Lieutenant General Vasily Zavgorodniy has become first deputy chief of the Unified HQ. In fact, he will supervise routine activity of the HQ that will start functioning on January 1, 2004," Orlov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
According to him, 55 officers will work with the Unified HQ. "Nearly half of them are officers of foreign nations participants in the CSTO who will work with the headquarters on a permanent basis," he said.
Zavgorodniy was born in the Sokolovka village in Kazakhstan in November 1949. He graduated from the Tashkent Higher Tank Command College in 1971, the Frunze Military Academy in 1978, and the General Staff Academy in 1988. After graduation from the General Staff Academy, he held various posts in the General Staff. He also served as deputy chief of the CIS Military Cooperation Coordination Headquarters.
Zavgorodniy is awarded with three orders and medals. He is married and has two sons.
The CSTO brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Its main management body is the Collective Secutity Council that consists of heads of the organization's member nations.
The organization's permanent bodies are the Permanent Council of Envoys who are appointed by each member nation of the CSTO, and the Unified HQ that will become the working body of the CSTO Defense Ministers Council on January 1, 2004.