Government support for small and medium businesses in the region under pandemic and sanction pressure

In the current social and economic conditions, the role of small and medium-sized businesses in the effective development of Russia and its regions is only increasing. The economic sector of small and medium-sized businesses is the system that creates a competitive environment. Its development contributes to the economic, social, and political stability of society and the state. The COVID-19 pandemic, as well as subsequent sanctions, had a significant negative impact on small and medium-sized businesses, which especially needed state support during the crisis. The purpose of the article is to analyze measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the face of sanctions pressure. In the context of the sanctions and pandemic, ways to support enterprises were represented by the introduction of parallel imports of goods, the simplification of settlements with foreign partners, and the provision of the opportunity not to pay for patents to foreign counterparties. However, in the region, there is negative information about both the number of small enterprises and the number of people employed in them. The reasons were the general economic situation, lack of financial support, informal employment, low effective demand, low investment activity of businesses, the search for personnel for the production process, and the lack of information about government support measures. Measures to improve the situation in the field of small and medium-sized businesses in the Volgograd region are proposed as follows: reduction of administrative barriers; improvement of the taxation system; attraction of small businesses to purchase for government needs; direct financing of their activities; affordable support system; increase of the number of free information and consulting centers; and improvement of legislation in the field of support for small and medium-sized enterprises.