Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

The state secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Pavel Borodin on Friday argued that a new Soviet Union is likely to come into being by 2017 as the result of the emergent customs union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan The state secretary of the Union State of Belarus and Russia Pavel Borodin on Friday argued that a new Soviet Union is likely to come into being by 2017 as the result of the emergent customs union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan.

It is "an unprecedented step toward the restoration of the Soviet Union. I give you journalists a directive to write that Soviet space will be restored in 2017," Borodin told a news conference in Minsk.

He said he saw 2017 as a symbolic date because the Bolsheviks established their rule in 1917.

He predicted that the customs union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan would be an efficient institution and that other former Soviet republics would soon seek to join it.

"We will take Georgia and Ukraine into the customs union," he said.

"Very soon, Russia and Belarus will adopt the Constitutional Act and introduce a single currency. In 2010 we'll go over to the dollar," Borodin said.

His deputy Vasily Khrol said Borodin "was joking when he was speaking about the dollar."

"The Russian ruble will be the single currency in the Union State," Khrol said.

"I would like political decisions to be made at a high level, but as regards the development of the Union of Russia and Belarus in general, 10 years is not that long, really. The European Union has taken decades to take shape," Khrol added.

Khrol said Belarusians and Russians would be able to travel and work in each other's countries without any restrictions. Moreover, an agreement has been reached to give diplomatic assistance abroad to citizens of both countries, he said.