Eurasian Economic Union: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan

Vladimir Isachenkov reports for the AP that on Dec. 23, 2014, Russia and four other ex-Soviet nations — Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan —  completed the creation of a new economic alliance, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

Emblem and flag of the Eurasian Economic Union

The EEU will begin on January 1, 2015. In addition to free trade, the new union will coordinate the members’ financial systems and regulate their industrial and agricultural policies along with labor markets and transportation networks.

Russia had tried to encourage Ukraine to join, but its former pro-Moscow president was ousted in February following months of protests. Russia then annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea Crimean Peninsula, and a pro-Russia mutiny has engulfed eastern Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the new union will have a combined economic output of $4.5 trillion and bring together 170 million people