The chemistry of heterocyclic compounds has traditionally been and remains a bright area of chemical science in Russia. This is due to the fact that many heterocycles find the widest application. These compounds are the key structural fragments of most drugs, plant protection agents. Many natural compounds are also derivatives of heterocycles. At present, more than half of the hundreds of millions of known chemical compounds are heterocycles. This collective review is devoted to the achievements of Russian chemists in this field over the last 15–20 years. The review presents the achievements of leading heterocyclists representing both RAS institutes and university science. It is worth noting the wide scope of the review, both in terms of the geography of author teams, covering the whole of our large country, and in terms of the diversity of research areas. Practically all major types of heterocycles are represented in the review. The special attention is focused on the practical applications of heterocycles in the design of new drugs and biologically active compounds, high-energy molecules, materials for organic electronics and photovoltaics, new ligands for coordination chemistry, and many other rapidly developing areas. These practical advances would not be possible without the development of new fundamental transformations in heterocyclic chemistry. Bibliography — 2237 references.

Copper-catalyzed O- and N-arylation reactions involving triarylbismuth diacetates or aryllead triacetates are ligand coupling reactions which were discovered in the eighties independently by Bartons and Dodonovs groups. These reagents lead generally to efficient arylation under mild neutral conditions (room temperature or 40 dgree C, no added basic reagent). Recently, the scope of these main group metal mediated reactions was broadened when Chan and Evans reported that organoboron compounds can be used as the source of the organic aryl ligand. Subsequently, organosiloxanes, organostannanes and diaryliodonium salts proved also to be efficient reagents for these mild copper catalyzed O- and N-arylation reactions. Organoantimony compounds were also used but appeared to be less efficient reagents.