Although its members have at times seemed reluctant, the Eurasian Economic Union was finalized today to include Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Armenia, AP reported.
Two days ago Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev met with Ukrainian Petro Poroshenko to stress the importance of the Minsk agreement and arrange for delivery of coal from Kazakhstan to Ukraine -- which itself was a coal-mining center until disruption of operations due to the war in southeastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian and Kazakh leaders also resumed military and technical cooperation, which was seen as a move to create relationships outside the Moscow vortex, even as Ukraine voted to abolish its non-aligned status.
Ukraine was once invited to the Eurasian Customs Union, but has now rejected the offer in favor of the European Union's Association Agreement.
Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenko also visited Kiev this week, not only to make amends before the Customs Union meeting but indicate that Belarus seeks Ukraine's help in improving relations with the West. Since the 2010 crackdown on the Belarusian opposition following rigged presidential elections, and the continued imprisonment of alternative candidate Nikolai Statkevich and other activists, the West has shunned Belarus.
Since Putin launched his war on Ukraine, forcibly annexing the Crimea and sending tanks and troops into the Donbass, the Customs Union has shown definite cracks.
While Armenia, Belarus and Russia all voted against a UN General Assembly resolution to condemn the illegal annexation of Crimea, Ukraine co-sponsored the resolution, Georgia voted in favor, and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan abstained. Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were absent from the room during the vote.
Lukashenko has made openly critical comments about Russia's trade pressures, including a ban on milk and meat products it says are tainted. And today the dictator didn't lose the opportunity even within the festive ceremony to blast Moscow for restricting exports to Russia.
The new union is supposed to bring 170 million people together and have a combined economic output of $4.5 trillion, enabling benefits for its members, says AP. But so far it has only led countries like Belarus -- with weak, unreformed economies -- to catch the ruble virus and suffer currency devaluation. Kazakhs have poured over the Russian border to snatch up cheaper goods since the ruble crash, but labor migrants from Kyrgystzan and other Central Asian countries are now forced to return home, as up to a third of their wages have been lost as they exchange money to send home remittances.
It remains to be seen whether the Eurasian Customs Union will have any more coherence and purpose than the Commonwealth of Independent States which was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Certainly the persistence of the war in Ukraine will make any Moscow-led enterprise a dubious venture, especially as the other post-Soviet states are mindful of the violation of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, where states gave up their nuclear weapons to Russian in exchange for assurances of their independence.
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