When the Soviet Union disintegrated, a large number of ethnic Russians and other Russian-speaking and Russian-cultured peoples remained outside the borders of the Russian Federation — creating, in the short run, many acute and complicated problems but, in the long run, eventually facilitating a revival of amenity and mutually profitable cooperation between the newborn nation-states in the future.

Thus, not only complementarity of national resources and tight cohesion of economic structures will be at play, but also healthy elements of traditional cultural ties pushing toward a revival of centripetal forces bringing the "brother peoples" together again. Speculating about the future of Russia, one should not ignore the existing prerequisites for the emergence of an integration system including the three Slavic republics plus Kazakhstan, and the gradual "twinning" of their economic structures. On this path, the relatively most successful of the integration schemes in the former imperial area — the Euro-Asian Economic Community with its Customs Union and Single Economic Space mechanisms — can play an instrumental role (though none of them include Ukraine).

Meanwhile, one is tempted to agree with the concept according to which innovative investment can bring steady profits only in a market with a sufficient "critical mass." In this particular case, that means a single market of Russia together at least with Ukraine and, still better, with some other fragments of the former Soviet empire. Unfortunately, there are only meager chances for such a development, while the idea of a "second historic re-union" of Russia and Ukraine is perceived as a delirious dream.