Much like Ukraine, Belarus has found itself at the heart of the broader standoff between Russia and the West . Both have competed for influence in Belarus, an important buffer state between the two located just north of Ukraine on the North European Plain. Their rivalry intensified in 2009, when the European Union launched the Eastern Partnership program in an effort to deepen its political and economic ties with former Soviet states on its eastern periphery. A year later, Russia established its own competing bloc: the Customs Union. Belarus chose the latter, joining Russia and Kazakhstan as the Custom Union's founding members. Since then, economic integration between Minsk and Moscow has intensified as the bloc has evolved into the Eurasian Economic Union . At the same time, Belarus has deepened its security and military ties with Russia, both bilaterally and within the larger Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization.