The Russian ruble depreciated sharply in 2014 after the US embargo was imposed, in just one day it lost 19% of its value, which was the biggest daily drop in the previous 16 years. Inflation has reached a three-year high. The reasons for the sharp decline in the indicators of the Russian economy were the factors of a sharp drop in oil prices, sanctions against the country and insufficient effective management. The article discusses Russia’s anti-sanctions actions at the federal and regional levels of government. It is concluded that the following measures have become the most effective in responding to sanctions: the introduction of import sanctions against countries subject to the embargo, reducing dependence on the dollar and euro in foreign trade (de-dollarization) by concluding bilateral currency agreements, changing export directions, introducing a national payment system, adopting import substitution plans within federal and regional policies, as well as a plan to support firms affected by sanctions. It is noted that the sanctions posed threats not only to the economy of Russia and its regions, but also to the economies of European countries and, ultimately, to the stability of the global financial system.

Economic sanctions always have destructive impact on economic structures of states, especially such developing countries as Iran and Russia. These countries used anti-sanction economic approach in order to oppose western sanctions. Strategy of anti-sanction economy is a tool of counteracting adverse impact of sanctions on national economy as a sanction target. The authors investigate the influence of strategy of anti-sanction economy on national economy of Iran and Russia, which are facing economic sanctions introduced by western countries. Research findings demonstrate that strategy of anti-sanction economy is a key priority of both Iran and Russia. This strategy helps these countries improve the local business climate, support small and medium enterprises and raise efficiency of local production units. Principle recommendations of our research for Iran and Russia imply that apart from using strategy of anti-sanction economy these countries should do their best to lower their dependence on the US dollar (strategy of dollarization), improve bilateral economic cooperation and eliminate trade barriers to increase trade flows.

Currently, sanctions are considered an important tool of international policy for maintaining security and collective response to violations of international order. At the same time, they are a factor of negative impact on the economic situation of the country, growth and production in the target country. Russia and Iran have been under sanctions from Western countries and their allies for many years and are experiencing economic problems in this regard. The article provides a characteristics and comparative analysis of economic sanctions against Russia and Iran, reveals their differences, assesses the impact of sanctions on their economic structure and financial sector. The paper shows that sanctions directly or indirectly affect the country's macroeconomic indicators and cause their decline. The authors give the substantiations for the negative impact of sanctions on the financial markets of Iran and Russia, including the banking and stock markets.

Oil is one of the most important sources of income for oil-exporting countries such as the Russian Federation and Iran, as well as the main raw material in the production process in oil-importing countries. Risks fluctuations in world oil prices can cause sovereign financial risks of instability in macroeconomic variables in both groups of oil exporting and importing countries. Negative shocks in world oil prices for countries such as Iran and Russia, whose economic structure is oriented towards oil and provides a significant part of the state budget through oil, could have significant consequences for the economies of these countries. Such fluctuations not only affect the economies of oil-importing countries, but are also one of the main causes of disruptions in the economies of oil-exporting countries. This study examines the government's management of risk fluctuations in world oil prices and its actions in Iran and Russia. The results of this study show that Iran and Russia, as sanctioned countries and oil exporters, have taken various measures to deal with these shocks, the most important of which is the creation of sovereign wealth funds in the two countries. In this article, the characteristics of national development funds in Iran and Russia are compared. The differences between Iran and Russia in risk management and the structure of these funds are shown.