At the meeting of the CSTO's Collective Council (Collective Security Treaty Organisation), Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia's Security Council, pulled out the old Russian message: „The West must soberly assess the consequences of its policy toward Russia. I am convinced that the successful testing of 'Sarmat' and the nuclear exercises last week will cool the ardour of Western strategists."

„Sarmat" is the intercontinental ballistic missile presented in Russian military doctrine as one of the central strategic arguments - the possibility of a direct response that does not have to stay confined to a local front. In other words: if NATO intervenes directly, Russia has the capacity to respond with means that recognise no border.

The rhetoric isn't new. Shoigu - now in a civilian role as secretary of the council, after leaving the defence minister post in 2024 - is the expert at it. He described the security situation as „rapidly disintegrating." The main threat, he said, comes from NATO and its member states.

The argument: military budgets. Over 1.5 trillion dollars a year in total among NATO members, with eastern European and Baltic states allocating more than 4% of GDP to defence. That's a quiet admission that NATO, especially after the attack on Ukraine in 2022, has genuinely grown. Not just rhetorically - financially and infrastructurally too.

What does this mean for CSTO member states - Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia? Moscow is calling on them to „quickly assess risks and strengthen coordination." That's diplomatic language for: stay close, stay loyal. Given that Armenia has visibly drifted away from Russia in the past two years and is moving closer to the West, these messages have a subtext.

For the Balkans, which is not part of either bloc, this is a signal that bipolar logic is back. And not as rhetoric, but as military-economic reality. A world in which every state has to choose, even though no one openly tells it to - „choose."