Roots of Putin's Soviet politics
In brief:
On July 25, 1998, Yeltsin appointed Vladimir Putin head of the FSB (one of the successor agencies to the KGB), a position Putin occupied until August 1999. He became a permanent member of the Security Council of the Russian Federation on October 1, 1998 and its Secretary on March 29, 1999.
But, on December 31, 1999 Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and, according to the Constitution of Russia, Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation.
However, Yeltsin leaned more into the direction of what is called pro-Western. He wanted to reform the Russian economy into a free market economy. Putin was against the reforms and wanted the Soviet system back.
In the video from April 25, 2005 you can watch how he deplored the fall of the Soviet Union.
It is here, and nowhere else were it all began.
Putin's own "European Union"
On this page two videos from the Russian propagandist outlet Russia Today, now renamed in RT, and reveals Putin's Eurasia Union project as his answer against the move of former Soviet states towards the European Union who no longer want to have to do with Russia's past, and against Boris Yeltsin's Westernization of the Russian economy.
Click on the title to watch the videos.