Currently, the chemistry of organofluorine compounds is a leading and rapidly developing area of organic chemistry. Fluorine present in a molecule largely determines its specific chemical and biological properties. This thematic issue covers the trends of organofluorine chemistry that have been actively developed in Russia the last 15 – 20 years. The review describes nucleophilic substitution and heterocyclization reactions involving fluorinated arenes and quinones and skeletal cationoid rearrangements in the polyfluoroarene series. The transformations involving CF₃-substituted carbocations and radical cations are considered. Heterocyclization and oxidative addition reactions of trifluoroacetamide derivatives and transformations of the organic moiety in polyfluorinated organoboranes and borates with retention of the carbon – boron bond are discussed. Particular attention is devoted to catalytic olefination using freons as an efficient synthetic route to fluorinated compounds. The application of unsymmetrical fluorine-containing N-heterocyclic carbene ligands as catalysts for olefin metathesis is demonstrated. A variety of classes of organofluorine compounds are considered, in particular, polyfluorinated arenes and 1,2-diaminobenzenes, 1-halo-2-trifluoroacetylacetylenes, α-fluoronitro compounds, fluorinated heterocycles, 2-hydrazinylidene-1,3-dicarbonyl derivatives, imines and silanes. The potential practical applications of organofluorine compounds in fundamental organic chemistry, materials science and biomedicine are outlined. The bibliography includes 1019 references.

This review summarizes and analyzes in comparative manner the S–S bond vibrations in IR and Raman spectra of elemental sulfur and organosulfur compounds containing disulfide and polysulfide moieties. It is intentionally biased toward application of the experimental S–S bond frequencies for structural elucidation of sulfur compounds. It was shown that the S–S bond frequencies are a useful tool for identification of the elemental sulfur modifications, organic disufides and polysulfides. Particular attention is paid to the correlation between the S–S bond frequencies and the molecular structure.