Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan signed on Thursday the historic Eurasian Economic Union with Ukraine conspicuously absent after the current crisis.

Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan signed on Thursday the historic Eurasian Economic Union with Ukraine conspicuously absent after the current crisis.

Cutting down trade barriers and comprising over 170 million people it will be the largest common market across the ex-Soviet states.

"Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are going over to a fundamentally new level of cooperation," President Vladimir Putin said at the signing ceremony in the Kazakh capital of Astana.

"The just-signed treaty is of epoch-making, historic importance," Putin stated.
The troika of countries will cooperate in energy, industry, agriculture, and transport.

"In fact, we are shaping the largest common market in the CIS, with huge production, scientific and technological potential and enormous natural resources," the Russian strongman added.

Belarus and Kazakhstan are in third place in foreign trade with the Russian Federation, after the EU and China, Putin said.

The Russian leader said that the document brings Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus to a new level of integration and fully retains sovereignty.

“We ensure a close and coherent economic collaboration and cooperation. Today we have created a powerful and attractive center of economic development, a large regional market that brings together more than 170 people. Our union has huge reserves of natural resources, including energy, which accounts for one fifth of the world’s gas reserves and 15 percent of oil reserves,” Putin said.

"We lost some along the way: I mean Ukraine," Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said at the signing ceremony.

"I am sure that sooner or later the Ukrainian leadership will realize where its fortune lies," Lukashenko added.