The year of 2020 started a new chapter in the development of former-Soviet countries. The coronavirus epidemic, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has spread to affect all countries throughout the world, including the countries of the former Soviet Union. Its influence has already affected the economic and social development of the countries in the post-Soviet space. Closing borders, stopping tourism, and imposing severe restrictions on transport services were the first measures that contributed to reducing the incidence rates. At the same time, these measures affected bilateral and multilateral trade and economic relations among the countries of the post-Soviet space.

All countries of the post-Soviet space have taken steps to allocate additional funds to combat coronavirus. Ad hoc funds were formed, the review of budget expenditures and revenues began. However, in fact in the first few months the countries faced economic distress, the overcoming of which could take considerable time.

The coronavirus epidemic is taking place against the backdrop of global economic crisis and a sharp drop in oil prices. Economic development models based on increasing consumption without economic growth, increasing the level of external and internal debt have shown their insolvency. In these conditions, the countries of the post-Soviet space, which are highly dependent on the external factor, have also experienced significant economic hardships.

Finally, the «price warfare» in the oil market has a strong influence. The United States and Saudi Arabia’s attempts to achieve dominance in the oil market, by displacing Russia from it, as well, have had a destabilizing impact on the world oil market. This factor has had a direct impact on those former-Soviet countries that produce and export hydrocarbon resources.

In general, the coronavirus epidemic, taking place against the backdrop of global economic challenges and oil competition, will have a negative impact on the economic and political development of former-Soviet countries. The impact of the epidemic, its consequences, will affect the former-Soviet countries for many years to come.

After the collapse of the USSR, U.S. Administrations exploited the policy of «democracy promotion» to expand American influence in the post-Soviet space and to counterbalance Russia. In the light of the military campaign in Syria, the escalation around Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, the importance of the post-Soviet space for the US foreign policy has declined, U.S. aid to the region was cut. However, the Trump Administration maintains interest in keeping loyal elites in power to ensure the implementation of reforms and business projects, in particular, with a view to export U.S. military equipment and liquefied natural gas. The U.S. primary goal is to counteract Russian influence in the region, to prevent post-Soviet republics from building stronger ties with Moscow and reorient them towards the «collective West».

The world order of the 21st century is characterized by transformational processes changing the spatial-temporal coordinates of international life. The features of the present stage are ambivalent processes (integration and disintegration; globalization and deglobalization).

The article analyzes the transformation processes in post-Soviet space. The relevance of the study is caused by the presence of several frozen conflicts in the post-Soviet space that have changed the configuration of the region and have been enhancing its conflict potential since they are far from settling and constructive resolution. The conflict potential of the post-Soviet space is increased because of the presence of new state formations: the unrecognized de facto states thePridnestrovianMoldavianRepublicand theNagorno-KarabakhRepublic, and partially recognized Abkhazia andSouth Ossetia.

The article also deals with the statehood acquisition and the formation of a new status of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, theNagorno-KarabakhRepublicand Transnistria. It emphasizes the necessity to solve the problem of obtaining external legitimization of the sovereignty of these political-territorial entities not only within the legal framework, but also within the political and social sphere.

The actualization of frozen conflicts is only a matter of time, and in the context of the deterioration of relations between global players pursuing their own interests in the region, it can be used as an argument for aggravating the international situation.

The principal approach to the study of this problem is the combination of comparative historical, institutional and situational methods that allow us to comprehensively consider the forms of international legitimization of small states in contemporary international relations and analyze conflict situations.

The article presents various theoretical concepts on the problem of unrecognized states; the possibilities of further development of these partially recognized states are discussed. The difficulties of political integration and the difficulties of resolving frozen conflicts, in particular, due to the lack of a full-fledged dialogue between all parties to the conflict, are highlighted.

The article is valuable as an analytical material for practical use by agencies and organizations involved in the development of political content in theSouth Caucasusregion.

The authors conclude that in the issue of the existence of unrecognized States of the post-Soviet space, the time factor is essential because in these territories new generations of people are born who perceive themselves as full-fledged citizens of sovereign States.

Over the past six years since the change of political power (in February 2014) and the new leadership of the country proclaimed the course towards Euro-Atlantic integration,Ukrainehas gone through the next and the largest crisis in its post-Soviet history. This crisis was the result of not only negative global (slowdown in global economic growth, falling demand and prices for traditional Ukrainian exports), but also regional (rupture of trade and economic ties withRussia) factors amid loss of part of the territory and military operations in the east countries. Such serious external and internal shocks greatly affected to the Ukrainian economy, which at the same time withstood and largely adapted to sharply changing conditions. However, it is not necessary to talk about any significant development of the country, about its structural and technological modernization, increasing competitiveness in this period. To achieve this goal, the new authorities ofUkrainewill need to make a lot of efforts, achieve consolidation of the entire Ukrainian society on the country’s strategic development, complete large-scale structural and institutional reforms, solve the Donbass problem and at least partially restore the destroyed humanitarian and economic ties withRussia.

As a result of almost three decades of economic, administrative and public administration reforms in the Russian Federation, as well as features of the economic development of Russia as a federal state during this period, a situation developed when, on the one hand, the Russian Federation was able to accumulate sufficient investment funds, and, on the other hand, provided the business community with the opportunity to invest in the Russian economy.

However, the effectiveness of the socio-economic development of the country as a whole, directly depends on the level of its socio-economic regions. Scientific, technological and economic breakthrough is possible only if the subjects of theRussian Federationactivate their resources. Meanwhile, as the current practice of political and public administration inRussiashows, it is necessary to create specialized development institutions at the regional level. At the federal level, these issues have practically been resolved. At the regional level, there are still quite a lot of barriers, which in the framework of this article are designated as political and economic barriers. 

The article analyzes the Russian-Turkmen relations, which at the present stage are characterized by special dynamism. Thanks to the return of Russian Gazprom to the energy market ofTurkmenistanin 2019, cooperation between the two countries has intensified. The leading role of the energy factor in the relations betweenRussiaandTurkmenistanis substantiated. The problems arising in cooperation between the two countries in the oil and gas sector have a negative impact on the overall background of bilateral relations. The article considers the external and internal challenges faced byRussiain the Turkmen direction.Russia’s focus on strengthening military-political cooperation withTurkmenistanis shown. Despite the fact that the interests ofRussiaandTurkmenistanoverlap, approaches to their implementation are markedly different.Turkmenistan’s foreign policy actions are entirely determined by its domestic political priorities.Turkmenistan, fearing excessive dependence onRussiaand relying on its neutral status, is in no hurry to establish closer ties withRussia, limiting itself exclusively to the gas sphere. It is concluded that the future of Russian-Turkmen relations will largely depend on the ability of the two countries to come to agreed decisions on the oil and gas issue.

In its almost three decades history, Ukrainian language policy has gone through several stages of its development. Formed before the collapse of theUSSR, the Ukrainian elite actively used the issue of the language to achieve its political goals. Even at the turn of the 80-90s of the last century, the issue on the status of the Russian language was in the focus of the political struggle. Relying on the party and bureaucratic apparatus support, the nationalistically-spirited elite ofUkrainebegan to use the language issue for winning over the population of the southeastern regions. At that time, it was of great importance, since before the collapse of theUSSR, the Ukrainian elite was interested in preventing the growth of protest sentiment within the country. In subsequent years, the issue of the Russian language status has repeatedly become the subject of intense political battles and speculation as well. The Party of Regions, the Communist Party exploited the theme of “protecting” the Russian language to consolidate their electorate before the parliamentary and presidential elections. Concurrently, the Western Ukrainian elites defended a different position, proposing to expand the scope of the Ukrainian language while at the same time confine the Russian language.

Despite the turmoil between the Western Ukrainian and Eastern Ukrainian elites, especially during the pre-election periods,Ukrainegradually “drifted” towards restricting the use of the Russian language and expanding Ukrainian in education and culture.

The situation in the linguistic sphere inUkrainechanged dramatically after 2014, when representatives of nationalist forces came to power. It became a policy to revise the legislation governing on the use of languages of national minorities, to which the Russian language began to fall into. As a result, the possibilities for using the Russian language were confined, while enhancing the role of the Ukrainian language. This situation has already aggravated the relations betweenUkraineand neighboring countries, in which they negatively evaluatedUkraine’s policy in the language sphere. In addition, limited scope for the Russian language has ratcheted up tension within the country, provoking new inter-regional contradictions.

In modern humanitarian studies and research in a number of social sciences, interpretation of visual data is often used. However, in some cases, it is able to make a negative adjustment in the methodology and research methods, which is a consequence of the terminological and theoretical underdevelopment of the theory of visuality itself, including within the framework of political science. The development of a general visual paradigm is currently in its infancy and is being carried out through the formation of the corresponding categorical apparatus, adequate to the real processes that it signifies.

In political science studies, the theory of visibility is an innovation, since they lack the basic conceptual principles of the theory of visual political communication, which are not in demand due to the textual orientation of political science, which has for a long time linguistic-political bias, obscuring the whole complex of images in politics. However, the transformation of existing formats of rapidly developing political communication processes and technologies in the modern information society and the creation of new ones is carried out in the direction of increasing the amount of visual information that not only complements verbal forms, but also dominates the processes of political practices. The communication processes that ensure the functioning of political institutions are, in most situations, visually attributed and focused not so much on speech and audio as on visual techniques, which suggests that they are the main tool of political communication and a means of constituting political reality.

In this article, the importance ofAfghanistanfor South andEast Asiaand for regional security is assessed.Asiaas a whole and the south Asian region in particular is playing an increasingly important role in world politics and economy. It’s believed that south Asia is moving forward and will be in a much better position both in politics and economy in the future of Asia and world. The region has been characterized by the dynamic inter-play of security, economic and diplomatic factors reinforcing each other owing to the complex nature of territorial claims and religious extremist activities.Afghanistanstrategic location is so important for south Asian countries likePakistan,Indiaand also forChina,IranandRussiastability and security in the region. AsAfghanistanis still a safe haven for international terrorists’ groups and Taliban, therefore it’s a serious threat to the region and world. Due to the geo-strategic Location of Afghanistan any problem will affect the region stability and security as it did in the past too. Further Successive regimes inPakistanhave tried their best to impose a favorable government inAfghanistanbut those policies harmed them only. ForChina, the importance ofAfghanistanbecomes evident from the internal security in Xinjiang region.Iranwould like to seeAfghanistanfree fromUSexistence. From other sideRussiaworry about the inflow of opium and other narcotics fromAfghanistanto the centralAsia.

The work is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the end of the Civil War inCrimea, which ended in the fall of 1920 with the Russian Exodus. The source significance of the newspapers published in the “white”Crimeain 1917–1920 is characterized and which became the result of the red terror of 1920–1921, when they were threatened with execution by bibliographic rarity, for the history of the domestic intelligentsia, science and culture. The presence in these newspapers of a significant number of publications of prominent and prominent Russian writers and scholars who are not listed in published bibliographic directories and therefore remained little known. The articles of Professor N. K. Gudzia, remaining little-known, “The End of Ukrainian Independence” and the writer S. Ya. Yelpatievsky, “Looking into the Future,” published in 1919–1920, before the formation of theUSSRin 1922, and devoted to thoughts on the future ofRussia, are being published. andUkraine. After the collapse of theUSSRin 1991, these articles again acquired extraordinary relevance.