Over the past decades, the European gas market has attracted the attention of many extra-regional actors. The geopolitical rivalry for the European gas market intensified after an increase in shale gas production in the United States, which was interested in expanding its supply to Europe. The development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector intensified the struggle for the European gas market. The U.S., Qatar and Algeria, began to take steps to squeeze Russian gas out of Europe. This exacerbated the competition for the gas market in Europe, where LNG has already occupied a certain part. Moreover, in recent years, the U.S. and Qatar have developed ambitious plans aimed at increasing LNG production, expecting in the future to radically change the balance of power on the European market. To this end, the U.S. has launched a campaign against the Russian supplies. In addition, sanctions were imposed on the Nord Stream–2 gas pipeline, which prevented the project from starting operations. Being involved in the geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the United States, the EU countries supported the U.S. course, and proclaimed the policy of reducing dependence on Russian gas. In the long term, they want to give it up completely. This goal was prioritised in the EU gas policy. However, in 2021–2022 this strategy rapidly increased prices on the gas market in Europe, which negatively impacted European economies. Despite the economic losses, the EU did not abandon its course of refusing supplies of hydrocarbon resources from Russia.

An analysis of the effectiveness of the work of regulatory legal acts and laws of the Kyrgyz Republic on integrated water resources management was carried out in order to identify causal relationships of work / not work, as well as recommendations on the necessary measures for the effective work of regulatory legal acts (NLA) in this area were developed. Also, as part of the preparation of this work, successful cases were prepared on the work of the NLA and the laws of the Kyrgyz Republic and Central Asia, transboundary and basin water resources management. The work was structured as follows: collecting the necessary materials, studying, analyzing, making recommendations. To date, Kyrgyzstan has not implemented the provisions of the Water Code. The State Water Administration and its Basin Structures, Irrigation and Drainage Commissions, Dam Safety, etc. have not been created. Water resources management is still carried out on an administrative basis, not on a basin basis. The work used various literary sources, archival data, Internet resources, etc., links to which are given in the article.

The reforms carried out recently in the Republic of Uzbekistan have caused a wide discussion. For many, the speed with which the liberalization of the economy is carried out, as well as the scale of transformations, came as a surprise. Being one of the most closed economies in the post-Soviet space five years ago, Uzbekistan managed not only to catch up with the progressive countries of the former Soviet Union, but also to do so with relatively small social consequences. As shown in the article, the “Uzbek miracle” was caused by three factors. Firstly, the reforms were prepared in advance. Secondly, after the change in the policy of multilateral development banks in terms of the conditions they set for issuing loans to governments, recapitalizing (in some cases) these organizations and optimizing their balance sheets, their ability to provide loans has expanded. In addition, criticism from the international community has stimulated multilateral development banks to take a more careful approach to the choice of tools used when working with borrowing states and literally “create” stories of successful transformation of national economies. Thirdly, the national development Institutes of the People’s Republic of China and Japan have been active in working with the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan to implement projects aimed at modernizing the old and building new infrastructure. They have invested significant resources to transform certain sectors of the Uzbek economy. Financial institutions of European and Arab states also cooperate with the Uzbek government.

Based on the matrix of projects compiled with the volumes of planned investments in the context of institutions and spheres of economic activity, the author pointed out sectors of the Uzbek economy that are the most attractive for individual foreign economic partners of the republic. The rapid growth of the state external debt of the republic has caused a discussion in the country about the effectiveness of the use of foreign loans, as well as the establishment of an upper limit on international borrowing. At the current stage, the Republic of Uzbekistan does not intend to reduce the amount of assistance it attracts from international financial organizations (at the same time, the public debt ceiling will still be set), since, together with loans, these institutions, as a rule, allocate funds free of charge for the preparation of projects and advisory assistance to the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Here, we retrospectively describe the Azerbaijani economy since its independence from the Soviet Union in terms of the main macroeconomic indicators that evolved throughout the developmental phases and economic cycles of the country. The study identifies five distinct stages of the Azerbaijani economy, namely a recession (1991–1994), recovery (1995–2003), peak (2004–2006), oil boom (2007–2014), and post-boom (2015–2020). Our analysis mainly utilized the numerical analysis and period-based grouping of the main macroeconomic indicators. Therefore, the recovery period was notable due to rapid reforms, and the economic peak reflected the consequences of the government’s oil-driven economic growth. However, stagnation and the post-boom period hit the Azerbaijani economy with full force, and revealed the harsh reality of oil dependency. In other words, the sustainability of the Azerbaijani economy seems to be below average as the growth of the main macroeconomic indicators are both highly and positively correlated with the oil industry and its many-sided effects. Extractive industries are non-renewable and rapidly exhausted. The commodity prices are highly volatile, and many political regimes of the oil-rich countries improperly manage windfall revenue. The future policy concerns of the Azerbaijani government officials should focus on rechanneling the available economic and institutional resources to address the lagging performance of the non-oil tradable sectors in the future. Otherwise, a wider and deeper recession will be unavoidable.

The article shows the role and place of the foreign trade activity of the Russian Federation in the development of its economy. The commodity composition, the main routes and the results of foreign trade in Kievan Rus and in the Moscow (Russian) kingdom have been investigated. The requirements of the Trade Charter of 1653, the New Trade Charter of 1667, the Customs Charter of 1775, customs tariffs, regulating foreign trade relations and aimed at developing foreign trade of the state, protecting it from foreign unfair competition are analyzed and summarized. The generalized results of foreign trade of the Russian Empire in the period 1901–1913 are presented. and the USSR in the pre-war and post-war periods (1940–1884). The current state of Russian foreign trade and its influence on the development of the country’s economy have been investigated. The features of the functioning of the entire system of international trade in the conditions of the formation of a global information society are revealed, the general characteristics and dynamics of the development of the information market are given. Comparative results of foreign trade of the Russian Federation for 2019–2021 are generalized and presented. The main problems of foreign trade and approaches to their solution are revealed.

The article analyzes the phenomenon of new populism in Central and Eastern Europe, taking as an example such countries as Hungary and Poland. The object of research is scientific discourse, and the subject is its segment, directly or indirectly related to populism in CEE. The main problems, aspects and positions that exist in the scientific community on the topic of populism are identified. This article explores the questions of whether populists in CEE countries are bearers of the potential for alternativeism.The piece also raises the problem of the model of the world order and the possibility of projecting an Eastern European alternative development-Most attention is paid to the answers to these research questions. In addition, the article outlines possible prospects for the development of the scientific discourse of populism, including in a comparative political key.

Paper provides the analysis of state-owned and private media companies during parliamentary pre-election race in Georgia in 2020. An attempt to measure the influence of variously interpreted information by different media and how this process, precisely, affects elections was made in this work. It should be noted, the closer the elections are, the more aggressive and radical Georgian media-companies become in their relation to each other and to their audience on a whole.

Political polarisation, as consequence of the fierce clash over political power, results in politization of all the social processes, and strongly affects information environment in Georgia. Despite following the democratic blueprint of state formation and announced course for the democratization of political processes, Georgian reality remains far distant from the set goals. Significant role in destabilization of the situation belongs to mass media, whose political activity prevents us from speaking about healthy political environment, nevertheless about flexible state-model in Georgia.

The article considers the evolution of Chinese policy for the countries of Central Asia, which emerged after the collapse of the USSR. The key tools of Chinese policy in this part of the post-Soviet space were trade and economic relations. Within a short time, China has managed to significantly increase the scope of trade and economic cooperation with each country in the region. A hallmark of China’s policy in Central Asia has been its evolving relations with each state in the region on a bilateral basis. The Chinese side made heavy use of such cooperation mechanisms as credit granting and infrastructure project implementing. In turn, the countries of the region were interested in expanding cooperation with China. This allowed them to support the national economies, which faced serious difficulties after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The article highlights the specificities in developing China’s relationship with each of the states, sums up the results of their interaction in the 1990s, and outlines approaches to the development of cooperation on a bilateral basis in the first decade of the 21st century. In the early part of the century, hydrocarbon resources and their delivery routes were integral to Chinese policy in the region.