REVIEW on final qualifying work of the student of St. Petersburg state University  BOYCHENKO Ivan Andreevich  on the topic "Russian media on armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space".   The relevance of the chosen theme of the bachelor is not in doubt and due to several circumstances, among which first and foremost stands out constantly threatening factor of a military threat in international relations, the unresolved inter-state borders in the former Soviet Union, and finally, the role and nature of the influence of the media on the armed conflict at various stages of its flow. Plunging into the object of the study, the author identifies as a subject the peculiarities of the coverage of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space by the Russian media and focuses its efforts on the researcher to identify patterns in the coverage of the Russian media of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space. That is, we can state the correct choice of the ratio of the object, object and purpose of the WRC.   The author sees the objectives of the work as the study of cultural and historical background of conflicts in the post-Soviet space; consideration of approaches to the typology of the conflict; identification of the interpretation of the conflict in the prism of the Russian media; analysis of publications that were devoted to the conflict.  Immediately, about the tasks. Unfortunately, not all of them" work " for effective achievement of the planned purpose in limited volumes of bachelor thesis. For example, consideration of approaches to conflict typology. And the task that is most aimed at achieving this goal - to analyze the publications that were devoted to the topic of the conflict — is not specific. The work has a very detailed plan. The two chapters contain eight paragraphs, two of which are divided into three parts.  We can immediately note that if this fragmentation in the text helps to reveal the logic and stick to a consistent analysis, the imposition in the TOC (table of contents) work 2 to 3 page fact not justified. Moreover, such feed materials accentuates certain shortcomings. So, the six-page paragraph 1.2. The reasons for the start of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space consists of three parts (2 pages each). And it may not be the numbers, although they are important. But based on the layout of the problems, it should be assumed that the causes of the conflict lie in the factors — territorial, inter-ethnic, linguistic.  It is still necessary to distinguish the cause and the factor. This is first. Secondly, even if these phenomena are considered to be identical, they are unlikely to be the only causes of conflict. We should not forget that armed conflict, like war, is a continuation of politics. In General, the content of WRC corresponds to the topic stated in the title, and the structure of WRC is justified by the objectives of the study.  The introduction is very modest in content and despite the fact that it mainly contains the elements necessary for this kind of research, still lacks the author's view on the degree of scientific development of the topic. In assessing the work it is important to know what was the author in the preparation of WRC source base in the theoretical and methodological plan, i.e. what scientific developments are available on this topic.  The first Chapter is of theoretical and historical character. The author examines the role of media in armed conflicts, identifies the causes of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space, and outlines the facts of conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Eastern Ukraine. The second Chapter analyzes the materials of the Russian media covering the above-mentioned armed conflicts of the post-Soviet space.  The work causes a contradictory impression.  On the one hand, the work is full of references to quite authoritative sources, and on the other, important and fundamental fragments remain without authorship, such as the consideration of the five levels of mediatization of the military conflict. The fragment is crucial for the paragraph entitled "the role of media in armed conflict".  It is not known to whom to address criticism, but in our opinion, these levels are more similar to the stages that are in a certain logical and time sequence.   On the one hand, the whole work is written (felt by the style and content of the text) independently, in a lively, sometimes publicistic and even spoken language, the author's position is felt, his own judgments and assessments are constantly given in the text, but on the other hand, this leads to the author's disregard of scientific basic concepts, theories and schools. The author's self-expression is sometimes dominant. The author's opinion prevails without sufficient argument. As an example, we can refer to the author's statement of the reasons for the beginning of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space (p. 1.2)    On the one hand, the material of the work is interesting, versatile, covering related areas of research — conflictology, geopolitics, and on the other, the author did not work on its processing. Therefore, sometimes the text of the "torn", in violation of logic and sequence. Example: "A detailed typology of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space has been worked out. In science, there is no single concept of any industry that would regulate or normalize the course of armed conflict. However, there are several common factors. These factors are: border conflicts related to boundary changes, which were held in the Soviet Union; ethnic conflicts; conflicts on linguistic grounds" (p. 13). Or: "Border conflicts are also widespread in the media, as it is a factor of state security." (p. 14), "many republics lost balance in their relations with minorities trying to impose on them the position of the 'titular nation' (p. 14) On the one hand, the author comes to interesting judgments, original independent interpretations and estimates, and on the other, they are not in a logical sequence or simply "interspersed" in the text without reference to the basic ideas of the plot, fragment or the whole paragraph. So, in fact, the content of the beginning of the work already claims to complete the analysis, because it already contains generalizations, to which the author will have to come to the end of the work.  The inconsistency and slogans of the text can be considered as a disadvantage.  So, starting to consider the territorial factor, literally in two paragraphs, the author writes:"the Main cause of armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space is not the most effective approach to solving national issues by the Soviet establishment." This is followed by issues of "indigenization and the formation of national elites" (p. 14.) On the one hand, the author makes an excursion into the history of conflicts, their causes and the current state, which enriches the work, and on the other hand, these stories are very fragmentary.  Chapter 2, in which the author examines the coverage of conflicts in the media prism (?!), begins with the General characteristics of the coverage of the conflict, where the emphasis is on the features of news materials. Next is the quantitative and qualitative content analysis of publications at three stages of the conflict.  The author quite competently and competently formulates the purpose of the content analysis and declares the purposes. A total of 75 sources are analyzed.  It should be noted the good quality of the content analysis, the scientific methodology of its organization. This is the main advantage of the work.  The work contains 25 pages of applications with tables, diagrams, diagrams. Unfortunately, the text of the work does not correlate with these applications, because only at the beginning of the analysis of each conflict is a General reference to the tables, although the entire text of the second Chapter is based on the data contained in the Annex. A more efficient way to mate text and tables should be found.  And a separate question: what about the laws and features (the subject and purpose of the work)? They can and should be "collected" in the text of the work, but in a generalized form they are not in the conclusions of the second Chapter or in the conclusion. Summing up the review, it can be noted that despite the criticism expressed, the topic stated in the title is disclosed. The author of WRC reflected actual problems of theoretical and practical character. The work is written independently. The author demonstrated the ability to creative, analytical work, the ability to explore the mass media product, to reveal the actual problems of theoretical and practical nature.  On the basis of the review it can be concluded that the final qualifying work "Russian media on armed conflicts in the post-Soviet space" meets the requirements for this type of work, and its author Boychenko Ivan Andreevich deserves a positive assessment.     "19" may 2018__________________ Professor.                                                                                            N. S. Labush