Azernews.Az

A top Russian lawmaker has said it was time to establish a new union of the former Soviet republics, in an apparent bid to restore the once-powerful Soviet Union.
In an interview with the Regions.ru website dedicated to the 12th anniversary of the Russian-Belaruisian agreement on setting up a union, chairman of the Russian Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) committee for CIS affairs, Vadim Gustov, suggested admission of CIS states to the group.
Vice-Speaker of the State Duma (lower chamber) and member of the United Russia parliamentary faction, Lyubov Sliska, backed the proposal. She said further that Russia should form a union with Armenia.
"Europe is uniting. If the establishment of a union with Belarus is delaying, we have to move in a different direction. We should unite with Armenia or with any given state that considers us a friend," the vice-speaker said.
She said the unification of Russia and Belarus was being blocked by "the ambitions of Belarusian parliamentarians".
It is evident that Russia, which considers Armenia its forepost in the South Caucasus region, has again questioned this country's being an independent state.
The idea of establishing a Russia-Belarus-Armenia (RBA) state was laid out in 1997. The collection of signatures began that same year at the initiative of some Armenian politicians to back the measure. According to some reports, about a million signatures had been collected in Armenia in support for the initiative, but it eventually did not gain momentum.