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debacle of the kind of political regime that Central Asian elites are considering for their countries.
For this reason, now the elites of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are much more in
favor of the current Eurasian integration project, which does not link economic cooperation to
a country's democratic standards as is done by the West. The current process of Eurasian inte-
gration is based on two simple principles - depoliticized economic cooperation and joint tackling
of security problems.
Russia takes a pragmatic attitude to the Eurasian integration project as an enterprise that is jus-
tified historically and meets the country's strategic objectives. Neither the population nor the
elites in Russia want this process to be politicized.
At present, Eurasian integration mainly takes the form of energy trade and joint energy projects
as energy interests are the priority for the ruling elites and big business in the countries taking
part in the project. But the deeper integration is the more industries will benefit from it. One
way to popularize Eurasian integration is to create facilities for Kyrgyz farmers to supply their
produce to the markets of Customs Union member countries.