The coronavirus (and the disease it causes, COVID-19) has proven to be a rolling crisis. Rolling in the sense that it began in central China and spread westward to the Indo-Pacific region toward Europe and at the same time eastward into North America. Its impacts have been felt most intensely, so far, in several emerging hotspots along the way, such as Spain and Italy. In a matter of a few months it became a truly global pandemic and economic crisis. It continues to spread to all inhabited continents.

For China, where the coronavirus started as a national epidemic, the problems were two-fold: first the virus disrupted China’s manufacturing processes as workers became infected with a fast and easy-spreading coronavirus and, secondly, disrupted the supply chain as demand for its domestic and export goods and services rapidly decreased.

The concept of «soft power» has long been the subject of domestic social, political and scientific discourses. At the same time, the current specificity of the Russian understanding of “soft power” as “comprehensive toolkit” for achieving country’s foreign policy objectives without the use of armed violence leads to attempts to define its structure, measure its effectiveness and further optimization. Such an approach has a number of consequences. Firstly, it impoverish the scientific discussion, secondly, it leads to an inefficient building of a communication system with the foreign policy environment. An instrumental approach that prevailed in the domestic political science and foreign policy practice deflect the attention and the resources to create channels and forms of communication to the detriment of its content. The key problem, according to the author, is the content of communication channels, the use of historical memory, as the main resource of “soft power”. An appeal to a common historical past makes it difficult to communicate in the Post-Soviet space, especially during the creation by the Post-Soviet community their national versions of the “long” history and it causes the alarm among political elites in Post-Soviet space.

The article analyzes the activities of the Commonwealth of Independent States as an organization of regional security. Despite the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union about 30 years have passed, the ruling elites of the New Independent States continue to search for their own vectors of foreign and defense policy. The author believes that in the pursuit of the many attributes of independence, these elites still have not defined clear boundaries for themselves where they can sacrifice national sovereignty for the benefit of their own development, but in close cooperation with their neighbors. The CIS, as an umbrella association of the post-Soviet republics, continues to be a platform for dialogue between the leaders of the new generation, not connected by the Soviet past. Their foreign policy is dominated by pragmatism and multivectorness. Therefore, the absence of a rigid managerial dominance in the Commonwealth is for them the key to the success of this regional format. It seems that this means that, using the CIS as a convenient and non-binding stage for communication, the participating states will continue to search for themselves the most profitable areas of cooperation, even if through trial and error. In such a context, the main areas of cooperation will remain the fight against terrorism and organized crime, as well as the use of Russian experience in reflecting new challenges and threats.

The deliberate activity of terrorist groups to destroy cultural heritage sites triggered the securitization of World Cultural Heritage concept. Among the actors of the securitization process, the UN Security Council plays a special role as the main body responsible for ensuring and maintaining international peace and security. Within the framework of UN Security Council resolutions, the base was gradually prepared linking the destruction and plunder of World Cultural Heritage sites, the illicit trafficking of cultural property with the financing of terrorist activities. This process took place in line with the securitization process, increasingly linking the protection of cultural sites with the maintenance of international peace and security. The article assesses the impact the in activities of the UN Security Council on the process of securitization of the World Cultural Heritage and on the development of regional legislation in the field of protection of such heritage.

While studying the changes in the conceptual foundations of Russian foreign policy from its inception to the present day, an important place is occupied by the systematization of factors, circumstances and trends that predetermined the beginning of overcoming mistakes and errors of the 90s and the transition to its doctrinal sovereignty. The collapse of the USSR became the litmus test of the attitude of the West, primarily the USA, to the new Russia. Having no historical precedent, such a swift — overnight — reverse formation leap from «real socialism» to real capitalism, and by no means the expected transition from confrontational bipolarity to monopolistic unipolarity, predetermined the hopes of B. Yeltsin and his immediate circle for the elimination of past geopolitical antagonisms, high expectations regarding the readiness of the collective West, led by the United States, for an equal dialogue with Russia. That clearly emerged with the regard to the elaboration of the first conceptual model of the foreign policy of Russia in 1993 that in a number of basic parameters had a pronounced american-centric character. The idea of the “westernization” of the foreign policy activity of Russia was pushed primarily by the liberal circles as a panacea for the elimination of the ideological and political pillars of the Soviet system, overcoming the deepest social and economic crisis with the hope, and even with the conviction that the «benevolent hegemon» of the United States and the West as a whole «will help us». The author proceeds from the fact that referring to the sources of the formation of the conceptual base of international activity of Russia, taking into account underestimated or, conversely, overestimated factors, is of great practical importance for updating and optimizing the foreign policy strategy of our country, improving the work of Russian diplomacy and increasing its effectiveness in the fight against new international challenges and threats.

The modern global financial system is based on unlimited dollar issuance, which is backed by a key reserve asset – US debt obligations. The concept of official foreign exchange reserves promoted by the IMF puts in a privileged position the countries with reserve currencies, primarily the United State. This concept has exhausted the possibilities for productive investment of the savings of the rest of the world. As a result, the savings of the periphery of the global economy are directed to the consumption and speculative spheres. Global financial crises has proved – despite speculative activities banks have priority support from key central banks. Developing countries objectively claim a parity distribution of the benefits and costs of financial globalization, as they play an increasingly important role in global value chains. As a donor of the global financial system, Russia is practically not involved in the distribution of profits in the global financial market. As the largest supplier of raw materials, intellectual and financial resources, Russia requires new solutions in the field of international monetary circulation.

The paper considers the tendencies of the international cooperation in the Black-Caspian Seas region. Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, there has been formed the conditions for expanding the cooperation and strengthening the economic relations between the states of the Caspian and Black Seas Region. The paper analyses the international positioning and priorities of the cooperation applied by the regional states, on the basis of which key areas and formats of their interaction are implemented. The results of the cooperation are being studied. They include the creation of intergovernmental organizations and new transit routes for the supply of goods. The influence of the issue of the the legal status of the Caspian sea on cooperation in the Black-Caspian Seas region is also considered. In the context of the conflict of the foreign policy interests, the concept of the regional cooperation has not been formed both on state the intergovernmental level. However, due to the high transit potential of the region, international economic ties are being formed, which is in the interest of all regional states. Regional cooperation is pragmatic and has a limited scale. Expansion of the cooperation is so far possible between the parties that do not have opposing positions on ethnopolitical conflicts.

In the article geopolitical strategy of North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Black Sea pool is examined. An author examines instruments and mechanisms of policy of NATO. The special attention is spared the problem of increase of military-strategic pressure from the side of evroatlantic structures. The «ukrainian», «georgian», «romanian», «turkish» factors is examined in the article.

Attempts from the side of NATO to use these factors for strengthening of pressure on opponents having no prospects and do damage international relations. Interests of policy of neighbourliness suffer. Thus expressing interests of transnational soldiery, financial and industrial structures, the USA and their allies intrude in other civilization and politic space.

An author comes to the conclusion, that experience of the last decade testifies with all evidence about strategic absence of any prospect of attempts of the use of the Black Sea area as a buffer area of isolation and inhibition of Russia. Exactly after the foreign-policy going of Russian diplomacy near development of the Black Sea region is the future.

Changing of accents from a geopolitical rivalry and fight for the «spheres of influence» to mutually beneficial partnership and clear distributing of mutual spheres of responsibility for maintenance of international stability opens on principle new prospects and for a wide collaboration in the field of ecology, rational use of natural resources, development of rekreacionnoy infrastructure.

The article considers the history of Buddhism in Central Asia and in Russia. It outlines the main periods of development and special features of Buddhism in the region, its influence on the local culture. It explorers the contemporary state of the Buddhist sangha in Russia and Central Asian countries.

Central Asia has played an important role in the development of Buddhism as a world religion. In I-III centuries A.D. missionaries from Central Asia carried out the sermon of the Buddhist teachings. The archeological findings illustrate the massive spread of Buddhism on the wide territories of the region which were part of the Kushan Kingdom. The second period of the flourishing of Buddhist teaching falls on the V – first part of the VIII centuries, when the geography on Buddhism in the region expanded, and it peacefully co-existed with other religions.

By IX century, when the territories of the contemporary Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tadjikistan stayed under the rule of Umayyad and Abbaside Caliphate, Islam eventually ousted Buddhism from these lands.

The third period of rise of Buddhism in the region started with the appearance of Dzungars who aspired to take hold of the lands of Kazahstan. From 1690 to 1760 Central Asian region had become an area of struggle for the hegemony between the Buddhist Dzungarian khanate and China. The Dzungars promoted the spread of Buddhism in the Eastern part of Kazahstan and Northern part of Eastern Turkestan. The entry of Western Turkestan into the Russian Empire put an end to external threats and internal feudal strife. It gave the start to the process of consolidation of the Central Asian nations, which recognized their belonging to Muslim Ummah. In the absence of Dzungar and Chinese factors the influence of Buddhism in the region almost stopped.

By the end of the XX century with the renaissance of religiosity on the post-Soviet space the interest to Buddhism slightly raised. However, at the present moment the number of the Buddhists in the region is insignificant. Among the followers of Buddhism the main place is taken by the Korean diaspora, residing in Central Asia since 1937. There also exist some single neo-Buddhist communities in the region.

Buddhism made its contribution to the development of the unique socio-cultural identity of Russia as Eurasian by it’s nature. Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tuva, as well as several parts of Altai, Irkutsk and Chita regions represent historical areas of the spread of Buddhist teaching. At the present moment the Russian Buddhist sangha contains of the major independent centers in Buryatia, Kalmykia, Tuva, Moscow and St.Petersburg.

Buddhism plays and important part in socio-cultural space of Russia, gradually moving far beyond the borders of the regions of its traditional location. Popularity of the Buddhist philosophy derives from the range of grounds, among which are the closeness of some of its principles to contemporary scientific ideas, first of all to cognitive sciences, as well as openness to dialogue with other cultural and religious traditions, humanism, ethics of non-violence and ideas of common responsibility.

The article analyzes the process of the movement of the Ukrainian authorities and certain church circles for receiving Tomos (ecclesiastical permission) for the creation of a single Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has now unfolded. The authors point out the extreme politicization of this process, which concerns, above all, the affairs of the Church and believers. The methodological basis of the research was the recently developed philosophy of schism, which allows one to see the consequences of splits, primarily in the polarization of society. For the analysis, the authors also used the method of textological analysis of the statements of the participants of the marked events. In the course of the study, the authors concluded that the facts and events taking place in connection with the unfolding process of Ukraine’s struggle for obtaining Tomos in Ukraine point to the politicization at the present time of not only religion, but also state-confessional and inter-church relations. The materials of the research allow us to conclude that the claims of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the right to solely extradite Tomos to autocephaly alone are unreasonable, since there is no source under them except for one’s own will and the cathedral of the Constantinople Church. And also the authors point out the lack of consensus of other autocephalous Churches that would grant such a right to the Ecumenical Patriarch.