KIEV, Aug. 16 ??“ Russia on Wednesday encouraged Ukraine to join the Euro-Asian Economic Community, a Russia-led trade bloc of six former Soviet Union nations, as a way to improve relations between the two.

Ukraine??™s joining of the bloc, which also includes Kazakhstan, Belarus, Tadjikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and that have pledged to have common trade policy, would undermine Kiev??™s attempts to join the European Union.