MOSCOW, May 23: The Presidents of Russia and Belarus prepared on Friday to sign a much-debated union charter between the two former Soviet republics, seen by proponents as a step toward restoring Russia's bygone might and world clout.

The charter, to be signed in the Kremlin by Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, follows a union treaty concluded by the two neighboring Slav republics last month.

That agreement, which was watered-down at the last minute, called for economic, political and military cooperation, but fell short of creating a single state. Yeltsin and Lukashenko are to sign a more detailed document, defining the new union. Lukashenko, an authoritarian and popular leader and a former collective farm boss, has made no secret of his nostalgia for the old Soviet Union. He views the document as a move toward a new entity that might form the nucleus of a Soviet-type state.

Russian communists and other hard-liners also are lauding the charter, saying it signals the inevitable return of a powerful state that the Soviet Union once was.

``We live in a Union again,'' Communist party head Gennady Zyuganov said recently. It's a good thing that Belarus is first. The Union once again stretches from Brest to Vladivostok.''

The more reserved Russian centrists say the document is a step that might help Moscow restore some of its international influence.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.