Economics
Putin’s Free-Trade Bloc Frays as Ex-Soviet Satellites Spar
Kazakhstan’s decision to float the tenge, sparking a 22 percent devaluation to the dollar, was cheered by producers who’d lost out to Russian rivals.
Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The plunge in the ruble is deepening divides within the free-trade project promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin to bind former Soviet republics together.
Kazakhstan sent its currency lower last week after businesses complained that Russian companies had flooded domestic markets with cheaper goods. In Belarus, the Eurasian Economic Union’s last founding member, the nation’s trade deficit with Russia widened by a quarter last year.