RUSSIA'S INTERACTION WITH LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRIES IN THE CONTEXT OF A GEOPOLITICAL FRACTURE

For a number of solid reasons, Latin America has an independent geopolitical and geo-economic significance for the Russian Federation, that was clearly manifested in connection with the crisis events in Ukraine in 2022. The article shows that over the past two decades, on the track of Russian-Latin American relations, there has been an accumulation of experience of mutually beneficial cooperation in the political, diplomatic, trade and economic fields, which persisted despite sharp changes in the global economic situation, deep crisis shocks, as well as unfavorable internal circumstances. The maximum expression of the Russian-Latin American rapprochement was the establishment of a strategic partnership with a group of states of this region. Interest in interaction with Latin American countries has grown especially during periods of sharpening of Moscow's contradictions with the collective West. This was the case in 2014 after the reunification of Crimea with Russia and was repeated in connection with the financial and economic war of the United States and the European Union against the Russian Federation, which became a reaction to the special operation of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine in 2022. In the current radically changing international conditions, the intensification and filling with new content of interaction with Latin America, especially in the trade and economic sphere, can and should become part of Russia's long-term strategy aimed at the priority development of relations with non-Western states. In other words, the development of Russia's partnership with Latin America can be considered as one of the ways to find export and import markets alternative to the Western ones, to gain access to the resources and technologies necessary for the development of the Russian economy.