Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union was signed on the 29th of May 2014 by the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, and came into force on the 1st of January 2015. Armenia joined on the 2nd of January 2015 and Kyrgyzstan on the 6th of August 2015.
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first president of Kazakhstan, proposed the idea of a Eurasian Union of States in a speech at Moscow State University on the 29th of March 1994. His proposal was initially rejected, particularly by Russia, but was eventually endorsed by Vladimir Putin in 2011.
The EAEU has five member states: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. As of 2023, the union has a population of 183 million people and a GDP of over $2.4 trillion.
The EAEU holds the tenth-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP and the fifth-largest by purchasing power parity. In 2012, member states produced roughly 20.7 percent of the world's natural gas and 14.6 percent of the world's oil and gas condensate, making the bloc the top producer in both categories at that time.
The EAEU has signed free trade agreements with Vietnam (entered into force the 5th of October 2016), Serbia (entered into force the 10th of July 2021), and Iran, with a full agreement entering into force on the 15th of May 2025. Mongolia and the United Arab Emirates signed interim trade agreements on the 27th of June 2025, and Indonesia signed an agreement on the 21st of December 2025.
Armenia's parliament approved a bill endorsing EU accession on the 12th of February 2025. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk stated this process would mark the beginning of Armenia's withdrawal from the EAEU. In January 2026, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed the country would remain in the EAEU for the time being but acknowledged that membership in both organisations simultaneously would not be possible.