ABSTRACT
Russian Acting President Vladimir Putin had called his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenka and suggested to appoint Pavel Borodin State Secretary of the Russian-Belarusian Union. The 'multipolar' and politically colorful Duma that convened on 18 January 2000 allowed the acting president practically unlimited room for maneuver. The opposition between the Duma and the presidency that characterized the Boris Yeltsin period came to a sudden end, and the executive started to dominate the parliament. Following Yeltsin's resignation, and while he was still just interim president, Putin faced a ballot in March to become plenipotentiary president. On 27 December 2001 Lukashenka met with Putin again at a session of the Supreme Council of the Russian-Belarusian Union. Early in February 2001, Sergei Ivanov, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, announced Russia's new approach to the problems of the post-Soviet space and the Commonwealth of Independent States as its main formal structure.
