disrupt trade any more than needed. However, Russia carried most of the financial burden of the initial arrangements and … states remained ambivalent, however, to submit too much sovereignty, whereas Russia formally stayed out of the multilateral …

Russia's attempts to create a single economic space with other post-Soviet states proceed against the background of … comparative attractiveness of the European Union versus Russia as potential centers and gravity poles for regional cooperation and … integration of the post-Soviet states. It concludes that for the next five to ten years, Russia will remain an absolute attractor …