Opening address of editor-in-chief.

A little more than a year has passed since the appointment of Yan Valentinovitch Novikov as the CEO of one of the world’s largest defense companies — OJSC “Concern PVO “Almaz-Antey”. In this period by the decision of the Russian Federation President the group receives a new name — OJSC “Concern VKO “Almaz-Antey” — and, therefore, a wider field of responsibility. It happened so that at about the same time the US and the European Union imposed sanctions against Russian companies, including “Almaz-Antey”. Chairman of the Board, General Director of Concern VKO “Almaz-Antey” Yan V. Novikov told “Economic Strategies” magazine about successful implementation of the objective of creating aerospace technology in the current geopolitical environment.

The article considers the state of the domestic mechanical engineering and highlights the key problem of its revival and development — restoration of human resources potential. The paper discusses negative features of the current state of human resources and proposes ways out of the existing situation.

The article analyzes Western historiography of the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic. It considers publications and specialized monographs of European, British and American authors on the subjects under research, as well as products of intellectual centers and “think tanks” in the USA and Great Britain, dealing with the armed conflict in Chechnya.

Building a configuration of transboundary EAEU manufacturing technological complex, beneficial for member countries, including import-substituting production and sales structures, makes possible the gradual replacement of foreign suppliers by Russian (allied) producers. With the help of distributed-integrated information management system it is possible to “joint” the interests of various economic agents on the basis of heterogeneous system components (including business entities and physical objects) of the common EAEU economic space.

For the first time since 1945 the Ukrainian society and the international community are checked with respect to possible combat employment of nuclear weapons on the planet. At that the source of the nuclear threat is called in advance — the Russian Federation. Who and why needs to prepare the consciousness of the Ukrainians and the international community to the possible nuclear scenario and puts Russia in the accused position in advance?

China and the attitude to it are an important and enduring part of the Russian foreign policy. To a large extent the Russian fates depend on it. According to the article’s authors, supporting relations with China at the level of good-neighbourliness, friendly cooperation and strategic partnership is main task of the Russian foreign policy. Such relations are a trump card in the international and forceful solitaire.

The article presents new approaches to foreign exchange and monetary policy required for progressive changes in the economy. It examines the features of the foreign exchange market formation in terms of exchange rate volatility, ruble depreciation, interest rate instability. The paper analyses advantages and disadvantages of weak and strong ruble, both in terms of the Russian economy development and in geo-economic context.

Changing the current economic situation in Russia is possible only through a global reorientation from external processes and phenomena to internal processes and phenomena at all levels. Both the causes of “economic illnesses” and resources for their healing are inside the country. The strategy for socio-economic development of Russia should consist in refocusing on the domestic market development and domestic demand.

One can long list problems faced by our economy after the economic reforms onset. But the most serious of them are: extremely low rates of economic growth and resource degradation of the economy, threatening the very existence of our country. Scientists, experts and politicians bring a lot of reasons of this and offer a variety of different methods and ways to remedy the situation. But it is extremely important to determine the main cause underlying these problems, because without its elimination it is impossible in principle to resolve them and all the measures taken will be ineffective or useless. That is, we are talking about the “key link”, pulling which one can pull out the whole chain of economic problems of our country. Publications and various speeches most often cite the bad investment climate or the practical unavailability of long-term and cheap loans as the main reason. But is it really so?