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The autumn of 2021 turned out to be hot for Japan's political sphere. Elections to the House of Representatives were to be held and the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party was to be elected. The situation was complicated by a bad situation with the pandemic, accompanied by a drop in the ratings of the ruling party, as well as the low popularity of the head of the Cabinet, Y. Suga, which has reached critically low levels. To rectify the situation, the LDP had to take extraordinary measures — elect a new leader of Japan, change the party leadership, form a new cabinet of ministers and hold early elections to the lower house on October 31 with new political ideas and new faces in the party leadership.
In this paper the author tried to characterize the main milestones of this tense political season in Japan, to assess the steps taken by the ruling party and to summarize the elections, which marked the beginning of a new stage of Japan's political development.
The author comes to the conclusion that the reason for the relatively successful performance of the ruling party in the elections was the increased media attention to the election of the LDP president, which allowed it to intercept the agenda from the opposition and win over a significant percentage of swing votes. The election manifests put forward by the new LDP leader's found support among many voters, which was also helpful for the LDP success. In addition, the traditional tactics of the opposition based on the criticism of the misses of the ruling party were practically ineffective in the elections, while a positive program was not presented at all.

The paper is devoted to the reasons of stability of the LDP power system that evolved inJapanafter 2012. The author attempted to examine the factors of paradoxical popularity of Abe cabinets against the background of the split in the public opinion towards the key issues of state policy. Special attention is paid to the effectiveness of the political technologies used by the ruling Liberal Democratic party to retain its dominance in the Diet. However, in the author's view, LDP faces a serious management crisis rooted in the autocratic style of its management under Abe's leadership. LDP has yet to find a formula for transferring power to the next generation of political leaders.

The rise to power of the Suga Cabinet in Japan in September 2020 and the victory of J. Biden in the U.S. presidential elections in November 2020 will have a considerable impact on Tokyo's security policy. According to one view, a focus on the global agenda would force Biden to step up dialogue with China, which could damage the Japan-U.S. security relations. Others say that Biden will not correct the «hawkish» policy towards China that has emerged under D. Trump, and therefore Japan has no good reason for concern. In its security policy Japan will in any case continue to rely on the Security Treaty with the United States, strengthen security dialogue with India, Australia and other «like-minded» democracies, and develop political dialogue with China and Russia. However, it is too early to ascertain what will be the priorities of this policy and will there be a tilt in any direction.

Perceiving cybersecurity as one of the priority areas of national security is common among both developed and transitional states in today's globalized and digitized world. This is particularly relevant for the relatively young Independent state of Ukraine, which has during the last years repetitively fallen victim to many instances of high-profile malicious activity in cyberspace, the so-called "cyberattacks". In response, starting in 2015, a number of policy reforms aimed at developing the system of cybersecurity have begun to be implemented. Based on Ukrainian normative acts, the author attempts to describe the perception of cybersecurity, its defining features, the key principles of its provision, the system of actors that are involved in it, and the directions of sectoral policies, as well as their concrete measures. Furthermore, the article notes down the achievements that have already been reached and underlines the key challenges that are still to be overcome. Finally, the case study of Ukraine allows reaching some generalizations with regard to the approach of a state to establishing the functioning of this area of national security.