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This research examines the impact of macroeconomic shocks and political measures, including sanctions, imposed by western countries on trade flows, commodity compositions, and import-export flows to the Russian Federation. To this end, we use 2012-2016 panel date to produce gravity equations containing the determining features of Russia's import-export volumes of agricultural, raw material, and industrial goods. Our results confirm that macroeconomic shocks led to a significant reduction in trade. A conservative estimate of the marginal impact ranges between 9% and 34%, depending on the sector and the direction of trade. This study also shows that trade-restrictive measures made a significant contribution to trade reductions. Open diplomatic conflicts had a particularly negatively strong impact on Russia's trade with Ukraine and Turkey, and the marginal effect was in the range of 30%-50%. The introduction of a food embargo by Russia resulted in a significant reduction in agricultural imports from developed countries, although the decrease in Russian trade with this group in other sectors can largely be explained by the negative impact of macroeconomic shocks. These findings demonstrate that Russia's trade in some product groups has been reoriented to countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Eurasian Economic Union.

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Russia maintains a strategic partnership with China, which became its largest trading partner. Bilateral relations have become even stronger because of Russia's "Pivot to the East" policy. China continues to provide ample opportunities for foreign investors in its market, gradually liberalizing the investment regime. Since foreign direct investment (FDI) follows trade flows, it is reasonable to assume the expansion of Russian FDI in China. In fact, we observe a reverse trend, as Russian FDI is very small and declining since the global crisis. The article reveals the motivation of Russian companies investing in China and their market entry modes. Particular attention is paid to main obstacles and key success factors of Russian companies in China.

The article reveals the trends of Russian intra-industry trade in the period 2001–2018 with the twenty largest partners, united in three groups, namely developed economies, developing countries and CIS states. Intra-industry trade was estimated using data for export and import for each of the 6-digit Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System product groups. The authors use the Fontanier — Freudenberg and Grubel — Lloyd indices to determine the share of horizontal, vertical and high-quality vertical IIT in agricultural products, raw materials and manufactures. It was revealed that Russia’s intra-industry trade including high-quality vertical IIT, both in terms of value and intensity is highly concentrated on the CIS countries, especially Belarus. A vertical type of intra-industry specialization dominates Russia’s intra-industry trade with all groups of countries, which generally corresponds to global trends. However, the horizontal type of specialization is most pronounced in trade with the CIS countries. It was found that most of the intra-industry exchange takes place in trade in manufactures, mainly with Belarus. The intensity of intra-industry trade in all commodity groups with both developed and developing countries remains very low and has not changed over the period under review. It is noted that during the 2010s, the intensity of all types of intra-industry trade with Belarus and Kazakhstan increased, primarily trade in industrial and agricultural goods, which is largely due to integration. The authors conclude that further integration with this group of countries contributes to the development of intra-industry specialization, export sophistication and the realization of technological advantages.