Economic cooperation is always a good thing. It makes hostility less likely. I suspect this move might be more about Putin's dreams of restoring the Soviet empire but time will tell.
And the only place you will find references to this "dream" is in Western mass media, trying to build up a Russophobic image.
It's not so much a question of "restoring and empire" as of "restoring the economy", that got hit pretty badly during the 90's. You have to remember that the economies of the SU states were tightly intertwined. Think Airbus production lines in Europe.
This union is only about trade and industrial cooperation, unlike EU, there there is an explicit and strong alignment of political agendas. If anything, it's EU in its current form that reminds me the most of USSR.
