russia enters new partnership with two ex-soviet states

[shart_attack]

By Raushan Nurshayeva and Alexei Anishchuk, Reuters, ASTANA—Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Kazakhstan and Belarus on Thursday into a new Eurasian Economic Union built to rival the United States, EU and China - but the absence of Ukraine undermined his dream of restoring Soviet glory days.

Although Putin denies he is trying to rebuild the USSR, he makes no secret that his dream is to reverse the consequences of its breakup by drawing former Soviet states closer together. The signing ceremony, held in Kazakhstan's new oil-funded boomtown capital Astana, was his biggest step yet in realising that goal.

But events since February - when a pro-Russian leader was toppled in Ukraine, Putin responded by seizing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and the West imposed sanctions - have cast a pall over the new union's birth.

The Eurasian Economic Union that has taken shape after years of planning is a shadow of the economic powerhouse Putin once dreamed of, snubbed by most former Soviet states and dominated by a Russian economy that is itself sliding into recession.

Still, the new union has a market of 170 million people, a combined annual GDP of $2.7 trillion and vast energy riches, and it can be held up by Putin to show Western sanctions imposed over the annexation of Crimea will not isolate Russia.

The treaty deepens ties forged when the three countries took the initial step of creating a customs union in 2010. It guarantees the free transit of goods, services, capital and workforces and coordinates policy for major economic sectors. "Our meeting today of course has a special and, without exaggeration, an epoch-making significance," Putin said of the treaty, signed to loud applause from rows of seated officials.

"This document brings our countries to a new stage of integration while fully preserving the states' sovereignty."

His reference to sovereignty was telling because Kazakhstan fought hard during negotiations to ensure it did not give up any of the independence it won as the Soviet Union collapsed, scotching Russian hopes of creating a political union.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, seated at a long white desk at which he, Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed the treaty, said the union would be an "economic bridge between the East and the West".

Lukashenko darkened the party's mood by mentioning the most important of the guests that stayed away.

"We lost someone, Ukraine ... for Ukraine, the burden was too heavy," the Belarus leader said. "Sooner or later the Ukrainian authorities will know where happiness is."

PUTIN'S DREAM

The Eurasian Economic Union will formally come into force on Jan. 1 once approved by the countries' parliaments, a formality for three presidents that have no serious internal opposition.

The union - an idea first raised by Nazarbayev in 1994 but widely ignored at the time - brings to life Putin's dream of uniting like-minded countries, capitalising on the nostalgia of many Russians for the order and relative economic and political stability of the communist Soviet empire that collapsed in 1991.

Putin noted that Kazakhstan and Russia accounted for one-fifth of the world's natural gas reserves and 15 percent of oil reserves - although Belarus's struggling economy looks like a burden for Astana and Moscow.

The new union reinforces Putin's drive to show Russia will not be isolated by sanctions, a message he sent by reaching a $400-billion gas supply deal with China last week.

But any hopes of rebuilding a large part of the Soviet Union have been thwarted by Ukraine, with some 45 million people, by far the most populous ex-Soviet state after Russia itself.

That blow, in the words of ex-Kremlin spin doctor Gleb Pavlovsky, makes Putin's original dream "impossible" to fulfil.

Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, both tiny and poor, are considering joining. But other ex-Soviet republics, including big energy producers Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, have steered clear.

Shortly before the treaty was signed, Russia's biggest bank reported an 18 percent decline in profits in the first quarter and more than doubled its provision for bad loans, with sanctions and instability caused by the Ukraine crisis partly to blame.

The creation of the new alliance also involves costs for Russia. Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Shatalov told Reuters in March that Belarus and Kazakhstan received about $6 billion annually from Russia in direct and indirect support, and said that could increase by $30 billion if all trade restrictions were lifted in 2015 after the union is created.

(Additional reporting by Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Peter Graff)

Ukraine's empty seat at table darkens party for Putin's new ex-Soviet bloc

 

[Avatar4321]

oh joy.

 

[shart_attack]

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

— William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming.​

 

[September]

I hope Putin blows some s**t the f**k up

 

[Katzndogz]

Obviously Putin is going to rebuild the Soviet Empire, probably better than it was. There is no way he can be stopped. There is no more counter to Russian power. These countries are weak, were always weak. The need a strong alliance with a more powerful protector. Who better than Russia? NATO is just about done. All NATO countries together will shortly not be as strong as Russia.

 

[Avatar4321]

Obviously Putin is going to rebuild the Soviet Empire, probably better than it was. There is no way he can be stopped. There is no more counter to Russian power. These countries are weak, were always weak. The need a strong alliance with a more powerful protector. Who better than Russia? NATO is just about done. All NATO countries together will shortly not be as strong as Russia.

If he drops the marxist idealogy and uses more free market, then it shouldn't be difficult to build it better. Not to mention our current technology in the wrong hands could be worse than Hitler.

 

[HenryBHough]

The day is coming when a new Soviet Union will be primarily capitalist and the former United States of America will be a primarily communist confederation of sorts.

Not enough time left in the constitutional time left to the current regime but that could easily be corrected.

 

[Katzndogz]

Obviously Putin is going to rebuild the Soviet Empire, probably better than it was. There is no way he can be stopped. There is no more counter to Russian power. These countries are weak, were always weak. The need a strong alliance with a more powerful protector. Who better than Russia? NATO is just about done. All NATO countries together will shortly not be as strong as Russia.

If he drops the marxist idealogy and uses more free market, then it shouldn't be difficult to build it better. Not to mention our current technology in the wrong hands could be worse than Hitler.

In 2009 Putin warned obama that the socialist economic policies being pursued by the US wouldn't work. Russia tried it and it didn't work. Capitalism in Russia has created quite a few millionaires and billionaires. They like it that way. Russia also believes in the people having more freedom. Parents are encouraged to homeschool children if they wish. There is freedom of religion. There is protection of the children from degenerates. There is a flat tax of 13%. Investment is moving to Russia even as the US is abandoned.

 

[longknife]

Putin Trying to Set Up his Own EU?

MOSCOW (AP) — The leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on Thursday created an economic union that intends to boost cooperation between the ex-Soviet neighbors, a pact which was at the source of the crisis in Ukraine.

The Eurasian Economic Union. Hmmm. Read more @ Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan set up new alliance | CNS News

 

[shart_attack]

Obviously Putin is going to rebuild the Soviet Empire, probably better than it was. There is no way he can be stopped. There is no more counter to Russian power. These countries are weak, were always weak. The need a strong alliance with a more powerful protector. Who better than Russia? NATO is just about done. All NATO countries together will shortly not be as strong as Russia.

If he drops the marxist idealogy and uses more free market, then it shouldn't be difficult to build it better. Not to mention our current technology in the wrong hands could be worse than Hitler.

In 2009 Putin warned obama that the socialist economic policies being pursued by the US wouldn't work. Russia tried it and it didn't work. Capitalism in Russia has created quite a few millionaires and billionaires. They like it that way. Russia also believes in the people having more freedom. Parents are encouraged to homeschool children if they wish. There is freedom of religion. There is protection of the children from degenerates. There is a flat tax of 13%. Investment is moving to Russia even as the US is abandoned.

We haven't had true, unfettered capitalism in the US now for over 200 years — hence the poll option about economic cronyism. (And no, before anyone starts SCREAMING at me: I am not a fan in the least of the brutally evil menace in American history known as slavery.)

We are no different than Russia.

If one is born poor in America today, he/ she is very likely going to stay that way for the rest of his/ her life, as there is no longer any such thing as the "middle class."

 

[hipeter924]

With the EU not as good as it used to be, there is a good chance. But the members are still mostly corrupt semi democracies like Russia or authoritarian states so it can't be totally successful.

 

[Peach]

But baby Bush "looked into his soul". Seriously, Russia is new at capitalism, no worker protection, few health and safety regulations. Add to that Archbishop Kirill's desire for a theocracy, just as much of a danger as the former USSR ever was.

 

[shart_attack]

But baby Bush "looked into his soul". Seriously, Russia is new at capitalism, no worker protection, few health and safety regulations. Add to that Archbishop Kirill's desire for a theocracy, just as much of a danger as the former USSR ever was.

A child of the 80s who witnessed the First Cold War's final throes, I have never felt that the former USSR was ever "a danger," myself.

They have in fact been the USA's best friend for over 60 years.

I look forward to the USSR's coming back as the official death knell for global terrorism.

Bet on that.