Customs Union: keystone of Putin's post-Soviet vision
(MOSCOW) - The Kremlin-led Customs Union now wooing Ukraine is a nascent but ambitious alliance at the heart of Vladimir Putin's bid to reconstitute elements of the USSR and extend Russian influence even beyond the ex-Soviet space.
The Russian leader has made no secret of his sorrow at seeing the Soviet Union break up into a scattering of independent nations with their own intrinsic values and political ideals.
Putin has called the episode one of the twentieth century's "greatest geopolitical catastrophes" that he has worked tirelessly to ease during his domination of Russia.
The Kremlin had this precise goal in mind in 2007 when it formed the "Eurasian Custom Union" with Belarus and Kazakhstan -- an area with just one-third the population and one-eight the gross domestic product of the 28-nation EU bloc.
But the grouping is part of a vision that also includes the foundation of a much broader "Eurasian Economic Union" that Putin wants to set up in 2015 with the goal of one day also including such giants as India and Turkey.
"Russia has viewed the (Customs Union) as a core for the wider integration of its 'near abroad'," the London-based Chatham House policy institute observed.
Battle for Ukraine
Ukraine's involvement would add 46 million people and a powerful industrial base to the organisation while stripping the European Union of an important bulwark at Russia's gate.
Putin's private talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Sochi on Friday have only fanned speculation that Kiev was on the verge of bowing to Kremlin pressure by giving up its EU ambitions for good and joining Moscow's alliance.
Russia's Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev denied reports of the two leaders having already signed "a preliminary agreement" on Ukraine's membership.
"But of course, there is always the possibility (that Ukraine will join)," Ulyukayev said Monday.
The hundreds of thousands of protesters who took over the streets of Kiev on Sunday seem to have few doubts that Yanukovych waved the white flag of surrender in Sochi after backing out of a historic EU agreement last month.
Russian pro-Kremlin analysts for their part believe that integration between Customs Union members will grow only stronger as the years progress.
CIS Institute deputy head Vladimir Zharikhin compared the budding bloc to the European Coal and Steel Community that established a common market on the continent in the 1950s before being subsumed by the European Union.
"This only tears down our customs borders. But the next stage -- the Eurasian Economic Union -- will involve some integration and be more similar to the European Union," said the analyst.
The Customs Union already expects the membership of Armenia -- an impoverished Caucasus state that heeded Russian warnings in September and abandoned plans to sign an initial agreement with Brussels.
Putin rewarded Armenia last week by slashing the price it pays for Russia's natural gas -- a blunt reminder of what awaits energy-dependent Ukraine should it follow suit.
Kyrgyzstan meanwhile remains a Customs Union candidate whose membership is being impeded by Russia's worries over the Central Asian state's inability to plug its porous border with China.
'A move to re-Sovietize the region'
Russia in Global Politics editor Fyodor Lukyanov said Putin was being primarily driven by a desire build an economic counterweight to the European Union that backs up Russia's claim to big power status.
"We had the idea of recreating the post-Soviet space from the very beginning -- even when our relations with the European Union were fairly good," said Lukyanov.
Putin himself wrote in an article outlining his Eurasian vision in 2011 that it was time for Russia to make a "historical breakthrough" and "change the geopolitical and geoeconomic configuration of the entire continent."
Putin's comments prompted former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remark in alarm that the former KGB spy was making "a move to re-Sovietize the region."
But analysts stress that Putin's dream of a powerful counterweight to the European Union will amount to little without the involvement of Russia's western neighbour.
"There can be no full-fledged union without Ukraine," said Alexei Malashenko of the Carnegie Moscow Centre. "But with Ukraine, it becomes a real international entity."