Sijbren de Jong: Why countries are not rushing to join Putin’s union
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R), Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev (C) and Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko pose during a meeting in Astana on March 20, 2015.
During the ASEAN-Russia summit held in Sochi from 19-20 May, Russian president Vladimir Putin claimed ASEAN member states voiced their support for integration with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). The diplomatic value of such a statement at a time of Russian relative isolation notwithstanding, there are ample reasons to take this statement with a grain of salt.
