MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Russia has no plans of creating an empire but seeks to enhance regional integration, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised Q&A session Thursday.
Commenting on Russia's Eurasian Economic Union with Kazakhstan, Belarus and other post-Soviet states, Putin said:
"We are not planning to create an empire. We have no such intention."
Putin stressed the idea behind supranational unions was to improve the standards of living there and open borders between countries, rather than to bring them under Russia's control.
"This is a normal and natural integration process. The whole world has chosen the path of integration."
The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is an economic bloc comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. Kyrgyzstan will be formally accepted to the union next month.
EEU was established in January 2015 to facilitate the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor on the territories of its member states. About 40 countries and groups of states have officially declared their readiness to create a free trade zone with the union, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
