On 19 October 2026, the State Council of Tatarstan approved the appointment of Colonel General Alexander Lapin as deputy prime minister of the republic. Tatarstan head Rustam Minnikhanov signed the appointment decree the same day. Lapin had previously been appointed acting deputy prime minister on 29 September 2026.
Armenia refused to take part in special exercises with the rescue units of the CSTO countries, which will be held in early September in Belarus. On September 1-6, units of the CSTO countries will work out the elimination of the consequences of an accident at a nuclear facility in the Minsk region.
Earlier, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and other officials of the country have repeatedly said that Armenia can de jure withdraw from the CSTO if the latter does not fulfill its obligations. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is an intergovernmental military alliance consisting of individual post-Soviet states. A kind of analogue of NATO, led by the Russian Federation. The union also includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan.