A forecasting system for calculating the demand for inter-regional rail freight transport is necessary for assessing the growth and development opportunities of transport infrastructure, connectivity of regions and spatial development. We examine the regional economy and interregional relations based on the existing system of rail freight transport. The statistics of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), international statistical agencies and the data of JSC Russian Railways served as raw data. The research methodology includes input-output methods and models, in particular, a static input-output model, as well as methods of correlation and regression analysis. We calculated projected rail freight traffic for two macroeconomic development scenarios. A better alternative (target scenario) of economic development, demonstrating an average annual economic growth rate of 102.2 % for the period 2015–2035, would lead to a 16.2 % increase in the rail freight traffic by 2035 compared to the baseline scenario. The second scenario is based on the hypothesis of economic stagnation at the level of 1%. Such an increase is achieved by domestic transport, in which the share of construction freight for approximately 30.9 % of total traffic by 2035, and export transport, where the share of energy freight is 44.1 % of the total. An increase in shipment in total rail freight transport will be provided by enterprises of the Central, Northwestern, Volga and Siberian Federal Districts. The proposed tools allow sub- stantiating the strategic development of the railway system, assessing the cooperation between the economy and rail transport. The results can be used for analytical and predictive support of the strategic development of the railway system in the Russian Federation. The future research will focus on expanding the set of factors for considering the regional characteristics of economic development, a more meaningful assessment of the connectivity of regions, not only in the system of rail freight transport.

Recent inclusion of the issue of economy decarbonization in the global agenda has been affecting social and political priorities. To lower greenhouse gas emissions, Russian economy has to reduce anthropogenic emissions and maximise the carbon sequestration potential of national forests. The paper demonstrates that Russian forest ecosystems compensate for more than a quarter (almost 27 %) of anthropogenic emissions. However, due to the absence of a reliable, time-tested forest inventory system in Russia, as opposed to leading countries, it is difficult to ensure the sustainable use of forest resources and full accounting of greenhouse gas absorption by forests. The research analyses systemic measures to improve the absorptive capacity of Russian forests as a key element of the mechanism for compensating industrial greenhouse gas emissions, since the global expert community should recognise the contribution of these forests to the global climate change mitigation. Potential economic benefits of increasing the carbon-absorbing capacity of forests are assessed at the regional level. The example of Irkutsk oblast shows that the calculated effect of the analysed measures can amount to 6–7 dollars/ha at the current price of carbon credits; full implementation of these measures in the region can bring up to 480 million US dollars annually, net of expenses. The research proposes to ensure the necessary quality and completeness of data of the State Forest Registry by integrating remote and ground-based field measurements. It is also suggested to enhance institutional and investment support to state forest conservation initiatives, including in the framework of the National Project “Ecology” and forest-climate projects based on public-private partnerships. These measures should be included in the reform of public policy in the field of forest management.