Crimes against the foundations of Ukraine's national security: new challenges today
Authors: Kuznetsov V. , Siyploki M. , Nesterova І. 
Published: June 2023

The article compares the changes to the current criminal legislation, which relate to crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine and the draft Criminal Code, which creates a new system of norms on liability for criminal offenses against the state. The conducted analysis of modern scientific works on the indicated issues allowed us to draw a conclusion about the scientific researching of crimes against the foundations of national security, mainly under the Criminal Code in the editorial office until February 24, 2022. Large-scale aggression by Russia forced to reconsider the content of the criminal law policy in the sphere of national security.

The aim of the article is to identify the problematic issues that arise when improving criminal liability for crimes against the foundations of national security of Ukraine.

It was established that the draft Criminal Code provides for Chapter 9.1 in the ninth book "Criminal Offenses against State", "Crimes against State Security". This section provides for 14 articles, which contain clarifying (Article 9.1.1) and prohibitive (Article 9.1.2–9.1.14) norms.

Comparison of the relevant section 9.1. "Crimes against State Security" of the draft Criminal Code and Section 1 "Crimes against the Foundations of National Security of Ukraine" of the current Criminal Code allowed to draw the following conclusions regarding its improvement, in particular, it was proposed: to change the name of Section 1 of the Special Part of the Criminal Code to "Criminal Offenses against the National Security of Ukraine" (in the CC draft - the name of Section 9.1 "Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine"); to clarify the definition of the aggressor state in paragraph 2 of Article 9.1.1 of the CC draft; to clarify the concept of "implementation of information activities" in paragraph 4 of Art. 9.1.1 of CC draft ("creating, collecting, receiving, storing, using or disseminating information in order to provide  support  to the aggressor state"); in p. 2 Notes to Art. 111-1 of the CC to clarify the concept: "an event of a political nature - a congress, meeting, rally, march, demonstration, conference, round table, etc., the content of which is the discussion of domestic or foreign policy issues"; in Art. 9.1.7. of CC draft to provide punishment as a crime of the 6th degree; in Art. 9.1.10 of CC draft to specify the subject of the crime through a foreigner or stateless person; part 1 of Art. 9.1.10.  should be put in the following wording: "1) received from a foreign state, foreign organization, illegal armed formation or their representative the task of collecting information that can be used to the detriment of the national security of Ukraine"; to define a citizen of Ukraine as a subject in all criminal offenses provided for by parts 1-7 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code; to exclude the reference to "voluntary cooperation" in parts 2, 5, 7 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code (part 1 of Article 9.1.8 of  CC draft); in part 3 of Art. 111-1 of the Criminal Code (part 6 of Article 9.1.8 of CC draft) to exclude such a form of crime as: "actions aimed at implementing the standards of education of the aggressor state in educational institutions)".