The former Eastern Europe

This sentence recently came up in some copy submitted to the production desk:

The former Eastern Europe and Russia is a particular target of current expansion

Um, what happened to Eastern Europe – why is it 'former'? Have all the countries been relocated elsewhere – and if so, where? I think the writer has been dazzled and distracted by phrases such as 'the former Soviet Bloc'.

Oh, and don't get me started on subject-verb agreement...