The article attempts to conduct a comparative analysis of strategy of counteraction for Iran and Russia to economic sanctions as modern foreign policy means of compulsion are undertaken. The author starts with the unacceptability and illegitimacy of the sanction regimes established by the USA and their satellites without the decision of the Security Council of the United Nations. It is underlined that sanctions are directed on restricting or influencing the sovereignty and sovereign political policy by means of measures of economic character, destabilization of the political sys- tem and a change of a state’s political policy, a political mode. In formation of a modern Russian policy to counter the pressure of sanctions it is possible and it is necessary to consider not only domestic experience, but also the practices of other states, in particular Iran which has been under the influence of sanctions for several decades. As a strategy of countering economic sanc- tions, Iran invokes the methods of economic mobilization to diversify export and import, external relations of the state, search for new partners and its features of state activity in organizing import substitution are of interest. Recognizing the prospect of preservation and the essential damage done by economic sanctions, the article concludes with the necessity to diversify external rela- tions of the state. Priorities in the policy of countering sanctions are also identified: international trade development, creation of alternative financial systems of calculations, import substitution, creation of an effective and developed economy that has a high level of stability.