Putin calls For ‘Eurasian Union’ of ex-Soviet republics, not a new Soviet Union honest
Vladimir Putin, who is now Prime Minister of Russia, but used to be President, who recently announced he was running again for President, said today that he’d love to see the formation of a “Eurasian Union” of ex-Soviet republics, because that worked out so well last time.
He said Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan were already going ahead with economic integration.
However, he denied proposing to re-create the Soviet Union, saying a new bloc would have different values.
“There is no talk about rebuilding the USSR in one way or another,” he said in an article in the daily newspaper Izvestia.
“It would be naive to try to restore or copy something that belongs to the past, but a close integration based on new values and economic and political foundation is a demand of the present time.”
He said a “Eurasian Union” would “build on the experience of the European Union and other regional coalitions”.
Mr Putin said the aim was to “create real conditions to change the geopolitical and geoeconomic configuration of the entire continent and have an undoubtedly positive global effect”.
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have already formed an economic alliance that removes customs barriers. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have said they are studying the possibility of joining the scheme.
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