Russian Prime Minister and, let’s face it, soon-to-be-President-again, Vladimir Putin has made calls for a “Eurasian Union” as part of his presidential campaign platform. A Eurasian Union made of entirely of former Soviet Union states. Because it worked so well the last time that happened.

What makes this a new union with the same great Soviet taste? Putin claims that the bloc would be totally different, on the grounds that it would have “totally different values.”

Belarus and Kazakhstan, says Putin, are already going ahead with economic integration.

Putin said the following in Russian daily newspaper, Izvestia:

There is no talk about rebuilding the USSR in one way or another
…
It would be naive to try to restore or copy something that belongs to the past, but a close integration based on new values and economic and political foundation is a demand of the present time.

Is… Is he basing this on the tremendous success that the European Union has had in the past six months?