The year 2024 will be a milestone for the development of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS, a unique negotiating format for rapidly growing economies. This year, Kazan will host the BRICS summit, and Astana has already held the SCO summit, which was marked by the adoption of a number of important initiatives. The assessment of the results and historical significance of these summits requires a special study, in this article we will look at the state in which both BRICS and SCO approached them, what problems they are currently facing and what prospects open up to them in the context of a global transformation of the IR system. The first section examines the main stages of the formation and current trends in the development of the SCO. The author emphasizes that in addition to addressing traditional challenges, the SCO member states are actively cooperating in countering new threats, such as separatism, drug trafficking, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. In this context, the SCO countries are particularly attentive to the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan. The author concludes that although the SCO member countries have managed to create a solid legal framework and effective mechanisms of interaction, there are contradictions and even clashes between them on a number of issues. The second section identifies the stages of formation and current trends in the development of BRICS. The author notes that in the last few years, BRICS have been actively expanding both quantitatively by including more and more new countries in the association, and qualitatively, exploring new forms and areas of cooperation. In this regard, special attention is paid to the efforts to create a BRICS currency and to cooperation within the framework of the New Development Bank. According to the author, the SCO summits in Astana and BRICS in Kazan in 2024 should bring the development of these international structures, which embody hopes for the establishment of a new, fairer world order, to a qualitatively new level.

The growing interstate rivalry sweeps more and more areas of international relations, including energy issues. While the ‘traditional’ oil and gas exporters are trying to maintain or even strengthen their current positions, new players in the oil and gas market are trying to challenge the status quo. The changing situation on the oil market due to the ‘price war’ between the United States and OPEC countries serves as a clear manifestation of this trend and encourages the OPEC members to coordinate their policies more closely with external partners. This paper aims to identify the prerequisites and assess the dynamics of cooperation between Russia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) within the OPEC+ framework. The first section of the paper examines the logic behind the OPEC+ agreement in the context of the development of energy cooperation between the Russian Federation and the KSA before the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis. The authors note that the new format demonstrated stability within the first years of its existence and generated closer cooperation between the hydrocarbon exporting countries. The second section examines the development of OPEC+ in the face of increased geopolitical pressure from the United States and its allies. The authors conclude that the efforts of Washington and oil importing countries to undermine energy cooperation within the OPEC+ format have not succeeded, on the contrary the international stance of the group members has only strengthened. In conclusion, the authors emphasize that OPEC+ not only contributes to the stability of energy prices, but also brings tangible political benefits to its members. At the same time, according to the authors, the future of this format largely depends on the dynamics of international environment and, particularly, on the scale of the US-Russian confrontation.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one of the key multilateral structures in Asia-Pacific. Throughout its history, the organization has established a system of external partnerships. In 2010, a specific security-related dialogue format has been introduced into this system, — the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus). In order to provide a better understanding of the legal nature of the ADMM-Plus as an international grouping, and to discuss the dynamics of its evolution, as well as the practical results of its work, this paper examines the Meeting’s activities in the recent years (2010 to 2022) and identifies the stages of its institutional development. The author notes that, unlike other similar fora, ADMM-Plus has a strictly limited number of participants. It could seem counterproductive, however, both ASEAN and its dialogue partners keep up to the closed nature of the grouping, beware of the potential contradictionsincaseofitsexpansion.Theauthoralsoconductsthediscourse analysis of the ADMM-Plus documents and member statements, highlighting +-the views of the participants and identifying the current international positioning of the forum. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes that, in the context of the fundamental changes in the world order, ASEAN has proven its ability to control the sensitive agenda of the ADMM-Plus, and stays committed to its principles of multi-faceted policy. At the same time, the affinity of Russian and ASEAN approaches towards the development of Asia-Pacific is displayed. While other dialogue partners, primarily the United States and China, are pressurising ASEAN in order to ‘win over’ the Southeast Asian countries to their side, Russia consistently promotes an equal, practice-oriented dialogue, and adheres to the principles of non-interference in internal affairs and in local conflicts. The author concludes that, in spite of the low-profile practical achievements of the ADMM-Plus, the Meeting remains suitable for all its participants, as the main effect of its activity represents the maintenance of contacts and negotiations in the defence area in the face of the new regional security challenges.

In recent years, discussions about the essence of humanitarization and humanization of international relations have intensified due to the aggravation of economic, social, and ethical problems against the background of a sharp deterioration in the international situation, particularly in the Global South. This paper aims to identify the specifics and provide a comparative analysis of the approaches of both the developed and developing states of the North and the South to the formats, content and purpose of humanitarian diplomacy in contemporary world politics. The first section examines academic discussions on the issues of humanitarian diplomacy. The authors highlight two main approaches in foreign and Russian international political studies to addressing the humanitarian problems of the Global South — an objectal and a subjectal ones. The former is typically associated with the developed countries of the Global North and is rooted in the practices of the colonial era. The latter gained prominence in academic research in the 21st century with the emergence of the ‘new donors’, which promoted joint development programs led by the countries of the Global South and built on regional financial institutions. At the same time, the authors note that academic research tends to focus primarily on the dynamics of aid flows and conditions for development assistance, while a number of current trends in the humanitarian diplomacy remain understudied. These trends are examined in the second section of the article. The authors emphasize the growing trend towards transnationalization and privatization of humanitarian diplomacy, active involvement of non-state and hybrid actors. The third section outlines the key features of humanitarian diplomacy of the leading countries of the Global South (China, India, Turkey), as well as that of the ASEAN states and Arab monarchies. The authors identify several general principles of humanitarian diplomacy shared by the countries of the Global South: a broad, pluralistic understanding of the humanitarian agenda to include cultural, scientific, academic, and youth policy issues; commitment to the ideas of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation (instead of the donor-recipient model); normative neutrality of the humanitarian policy; adherence to the principles of state sovereignty.

Modern criminal organizations are increasingly destabilizing both individual states and the international system in general. As they reach a certain level of development, they are able to undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states through the establishment of control over parts of their territories. This can lead to a situation of criminal rebellion, understood as a mechanism of confrontation with the state under which organized crime begins to pose a challenge to the very existence of the latter. In this regard, the case of Latin American and Caribbean countries and, in particular, Brazil is of special interest. The first section examines academic discussions regarding the applicability of the concepts of ‘internal armed conflict’ and ‘unconventional warfare’ to the situation of criminal rebellion in Brazil. Special attention is paid to two key criteria — the intensity of violence and the organizational level of the belligerent parties. The author concludes that with regard to both these criteria, there is a state of unconventional warfare in Brazil in the form of a criminal rebellion that has reached the level of the internal armed conflict. The second and third sections of the paper examine the factors that contributed to the transformation of specific Brazilian criminal organizations — the ‘First Capital Command’ (PCC) and the ‘militias’ — into actors of a full-fledged criminal rebellion. In the case of the PCC, these factors include the adoption of more flexible network organizational principles and the guerrilla tactics, accompanied by the growing internationalization of criminal activities, against the backdrop of further militarization of the Brazilian police. In the case of the ‘militias’, the author focuses on the concept of ‘armed politics’, which describes a situation where organized crime pervades the entire state apparatus. The author concludes that the situation in Brazil shows all the signs of a criminal insurgency, when certain criminal organizations have reached such a level of organizational complexity that they are able to undermine the sovereignty of the state by establishing control over at least part of its territory and acting as a belligerent in the internal armed conflict. The specific of the situation in Brazil is that such an insurgency is carried out by non-state violent actors who formally do not pursue any political/ideological goals. However, due to their destructive potential they should be treated as if they had political goals.

In this interview the Head of the Chair of Sociology of Public Administration of the School of Sociology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Vladimir P. Vasiliev, shares his assessments of the results and significance of the UN climate Conference held in November-December 2023 in the UAE (Dubai). He examines the current dynamics of the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement, the key provisions of the reports of the World Health Organization and the International Energy Agency, and focuses on the discussions that unfolded at the conference on the use of fossil fuels and the transition to renewable energy sources. It is noted that the process of implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is currently facing a number of serious obstacles, both economic and socio-political in nature. Meanwhile, failure to implement the SDGs is fraught with a sharp aggravation of the problems of global inequality, food security and climate migration, especially dangerous for the most vulnerable groups of the population. It is noted that under these conditions, the Russian Federation is pursuing a long-term climate policy aimed at achieving a balance between anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and their absorption, in a way that is consistent with national interests and priorities of socio-economic development. Hopefully, scientists from Lomonosov Moscow State University will be able to contribute both to improving the environmental policy of the Russian Federation and to defining the global climate agenda. And for this, in turn, it is important to develop and strengthen the dialogue between the leading scientific schools of Moscow State University.