The formation of a strategy for Russia’s spatial development involves a full-scale account of “tectonic shifts” in the modern world order and related geopolitical contradictions and challenges. The purpose of the article is to take stock of the multidimensional manifestations of the consideration of the geopolitical factor in the “Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2025”, as well as in the “Spatial Development Strategy of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2030”, to highlight the remaining problematic areas in the domestic spatial development strategy, as well as promising directions for its correction, taking into account the dynamics of global changes. In particular, the need to ensure a combination of the currently dominant “centralist” (federal) approaches with greater consideration of regional (municipal) specifics, as well as the ethnogeographic factor, is emphasized. The geopolitical expediency of combining the “shift” to the East and South with ensuring the actual multi-vector spatial development of Russia is shown. The necessity of shifting the emphasis from “geostrategic territories” in favor of multi-scale problem-target zoning, linked to the expansion and consolidation of the network of reference settlements, identified, inter alia, in connection with the ethnogeographic features and geopolitical interests of the country, is substantiated.
