In the ranking of countries in terms of E-government development published on July 29, 2016, which is prepared by UN every two years, Russia ranked 35^th, down from 27^th  position, which it occupied in the previous ranking of 2014.In 2012 Russia has risen to quite honorable 27^th position due to dramatic improvement of its indicators in comparison with 2010, when it occupied 59^th  position.

The fall in the overall ranking, as well as its growth in 2012, objective, understandable and related to the dynamics of two sub-indexes - the telecommunication infrastructure index and online services sub-index, which together with the human capital sub-index form with the same weights composite index of E-government development, on the basis of which UN builds the ranking.

Online services index is based on the results of official government portals and web-sites survey, which is held during the preparation of the next rankings. Since 2012 the rapid raising of Russia's position in this sub-index has taken place: from 68^th position in 2010 it rose to 37^th one in 2012 and to 27^th in 2014. Rapid progress in the first stage has been associated with transformation of services in electronic form, the creation of a single portal of public and municipal services, the disclosure of information on the activities of public authorities on the official websites. At a second stage, this dynamic was supported by the expansion of public services in electronic form and implementation of a number of initiatives in the field of interaction with citizens using ICT initiatives such as the “Russian Public Initiative”, the publication of open data, creation of a single portal publishing information on the development of draft legal acts by public authorities and their public discussion.

In 2014 there was quite significant change of the UN methodology for the official web-sites survey, in which the expanded criteria related to modern trends of E-government development have been introduced (multi-channel and mobility, user-orientation, provision of services in relation with the real-life situations, use of a wide range of instruments for citizens' participation in the control and other processes – e-participation). Open data and e-participation were seen as an important part of e-government services (which we have traditionally understood more narrowly - as the use of ICT for providing public and municipal services). As a result, in 2014 ranking Russia gained 51% and 35% of the maximum possible value in the last two of the four stages of the online services development (primary and advanced information services, transaction and networking/integration services). It was enough in 2014 to further grow in the ranking (the above-mentioned trends were new to most countries than), but in the next two years under the new parameters Russia has not made substantial progress. Other countries began to overtake Russia and as a result in 2016 Russia dropped from 27^th to 38^th place in the online services index.

In recent years, the country's leaders have begun a full-scale implementation of a new generation of E-government technologies - digital government. It is no accident that the first place in the ranking of the United Nations took the United Kingdom, which has become an early adopter of digital public services, and the top ten ranking in countries that have adopted and implementing projects the digital transformation of its governance systems. The possibilities that open up digital technology to the Government of the Russian Federation, has recently been presented in the analytical report “Digital Government 2020: Prospects for Russia”, prepared by the World Bank in cooperation with the Institute of the Information Society.

It is fair to say that the Ministry of Communications envisaged appropriate activities in the above-mentioned new areas in the developed E-government System project and other documents, however, the delay in their implementation, partly due to the difficulty of financing, led to the loss of positions in this part of the United Nations rankings.

Similar dynamics is observed in the telecommunication infrastructure sub-index, which is calculated based on five indicators collected by the International Telecommunication Union (penetration of Internet, fixed and mobile telephony, fixed and wireless broadband communication). High growth rates in 2008-2010 of the telecommunication indicators, especially the Internet penetration, allowed Russia to rise from 63^rd position in the 2010 report to 30^th position in 2012 in the telecommunications infrastructure sub-index. In subsequent years, the growth rate in the Russian telecommunications infrastructure indicators declined and they no longer provide a further progress in ranking. The other countries became to overtake Russia and in the corresponding component of the UN index Russia dropped from 30^th position in 2012 to 33^rd position in the ranking of 2014 and to the 38^th position in 2016, which also determined the decrease in the overall ranking. Reducing the rate of telecommunication indicators growth partly related to the general economic situation, and in some part - with a delay in the implementation of activities and projects to overcome the digital divide in Russia (universal communications service for broadband access in towns with a population of 250 and above was introduced only in 2014, there is also a delay in the implementation of this and other measures). Some contribution to the reduction of the position changes in the assessment method of number of mobile users made. In recent years, Russia has become to take into account only active subscribers (SIM cards), in accordance with the procedure of the ITU, which reduced the value of this indicator.