Eurasian Economic Union to Launch on January 1

Leaders from Russia and four other former Soviet states met in Moscow on Tuesday to finalize the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan agreed to a January 1 inauguration.

The alliance will allow free trade among the five nations. It will also coordinate the members’ financial systems and regulate industrial and agricultural policies. This alliance will create an opec-like cartel over the vast majority of energy resources Europe depends on. Russia will be the controlling nation.

Putin says the union will have a combined economic output worth $4.5 trillion. It will bring together around 170 million people.

Putin had planned to restore Russia’s influence by creating a union stretching from Ukraine to the Pacific. He wanted that union to rival the European Union and regain what was lost when the Soviet Union broke up. But those plans were foiled when Ukraine decided in 2013 to move closer to the EU.

However, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned those plans to draw closer to the EU after heavy pressure from the Kremlin. Ukrainians protested in the streets of Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, for months. This led to Yanukovych’s removal in February, and the defeat of Putin’s designs for Ukraine.

Putin responded by annexing Ukraine’s Black Sea Crimean Peninsula in March. This ignited a civil war in eastern Ukraine that has already claimed more than 4,000 lives.

The mood of the Eurasian Economic Union ceremony was dampened somewhat by Ukraine’s absence, but the members are forging ahead.

While Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed his overall support for Putin and Russia during, what he called, “hard times,” he attacked Moscow for restricting Belarus exports to Russia. Belarus had been helping European companies skirt Russian sanctions.

The Trumpet believes Putin will succeed in returning Russia to its former influence.

For more information on where the Trumpet thinks Putin will take Russia, download our free booklet He Was Right.