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international relations it is quite difficult to find the line between, for example, the policy of “soft hegemony” and that of “rigid leadership”. Still, for an adequate analysis of certain geopolitical actors we distinguish between leadership and hegemony on the basis of the criteria of application of security tools that are inherent to the former.should be noted that “global leadership” and “global hegemony” can arise as ideal claims of the most powerful actors in international relations. In rare cases, the impact of a particular actor can cover very large areas of the Earth. Other powerful actors can either obey the leader (or the hegemon) or resist it. In many cases, the leadership (and hegemony) actually applies within the macro-, meso- or subregions of the world. At the regional level the ambitious contender for the leadership (and especially hegemony) often encounters resistance on the part of competitors. It should be noted that the sphere of influence of some powerful leader (or hegemon) may spread to the individual actors and their groups from different regions of the world. In this case, it acts as a transregional leader (or a hegemon).the second half of the XX century the interest of researchers to imperial issues concerned mainly the study of historical aspects of origin, development and decay of empires. The revival of the imperial discourse in science took place at the end of XX - beginning of XXI century, when there was a transformation of the world order and there was a need for an adequate interpretation of very large geopolitical systems not only of the past but of the present as well. Empires have been built primarily on the basis of the power factor in the past - “imperial domination ... is a necessary result of relations between powerful and weak states” [Doyle, 1986: 28]. The interpretation of empire as a hierarchical system was proposed by G. Lundestad: “empire simply means a hierarchical system of political relationships which one power being much stronger than any other” [Lundestad, 1990: 37]. For contemporary research remains topical the wording of M. Doyle: “Empire ... is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society” [Doyle, 1986: 45].of this paper is an adherent of the neo-imperial conception, according to which in the modern world new polities emerge - neo-empires, whose role increasingly grows. Neo-empires differ from the classical empires primarily by their informal nature. They essentially are “structures of transnational political authority that combine an egalitarian principle of de jure sovereignty with a hierarchical principle of de facto control” [Wendt, Friedheim, 1995: 695]. In our view, neo-empire is a supranational polity in which the “center” is combined with diverse actors using differentiated leadership, hegemonic or imperial relations. These relations are based on certain ideological principles and are implemented in the political, military, economic, cultural and other spheres. Thus, a concept of neo-empire combines traditional idea of empire (with its geopolitics), hegemony and leadership.empire as a geospatial political system has a hierarchical-network structure. Ideally neo-imperial “center” should be presented by especially powerful state. At the international level, the network structure of neo-empire beside the “center” includes its allies in respect to whom it is a leader. Hidden hegemony of the “center” in relation to the allies is quite possible. Neo-empires have not rigid hierarchical organization. Classic “periphery” largely withdraws to the past. Some Western states still have small dependent countries and territories. Imperial hierarchy may also manifest itself through the relationship between “center” and satellite countries (“patron” and its “clients”). In neo-empire non-state actors play an important role and the most powerful of them have widely branched networks in the world. Thus, neo-empires are formed as a result of close cooperation between powerful states with large network actors.think that the Western macro-empire (informal union of Western states) actually exists as a neo-imperial polity. Modern Russia as the “centre” develops neo-empire in the post-Soviet space. We can assume that China wants to create a kind of neo-imperial transregional system on the geoeconomic foundation. India is appropriate to be considered as a potential neo-imperial “center”. Thus, our analysis concerns neo-empires of the West and that of Russia., none of the Western states and even Russia are not marking their imperial ambitions. The concept of empire traditionally causes negative connotations in many countries. Hypocrisy traditionally serves as an essential attribute of international relations. Nowadays the leading actors especially persistently manifest officially their commitment to high ideals, principles and norms of international law. Analysis of neo-imperial geostrategy of actors provides material to identify the essential features and real interests of actors in the international arena.is a set of key goals, objectives, directions, principles and policy tools of the actor in the world as a whole, in certain regions and toward particular countries. It involves the elaboration of general plans for government actions, determination of means and methods of implementation of policies in the international arena. Provision of own safety, combined with the protection of “vital interests” are the main incentives for the elaboration of a geostrategy by the neo-imperial “centers”. It turns out that the areas of “vital interests” of neo-empire are located even in the remote regions of the world, while security protection can be interpreted as the right to aggression against a sovereign state., geostrategy of a neo-empire can be expansionary. It was a main feature of classic