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The article “10 Years Ago, the World Trade Organization Opened Its Doors to Russia” by Alexey Portansky was published on the website of the International Organizations Research Journal.

The article begins with a brief discussion of the background of the USSR/Russia rapprochement with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization (GATT/WTO) and of some of the acute problems of the negotiation process. The author states that the Russian Federation has received acceptable, balanced conditions of membership. There are listed the advantages, which were gained during the first years of WTO membership, both for the national economy and in the foreign arena. However, 10 years later the benefits of membership turned out to be significantly lower compared to the initial expectations. The author attributes that gap to the state of the Russian economy, to the extinction of the continuing economic model based on the extraction and on the export of raw materials. The Russian economy still needs real structural reforms and modernization, which would change the structure of exports in favor of finished products and modern services. Only in this case can the benefits of WTO membership increase significantly, justifying the original forecast. The article is concluded with a discussion of the current challenges in the world economy and trade, the crisis experienced by the WTO, and the active position of the Russian Federation on the future reform of the WTO.