Threat of committing a terrorist act
Authors: Popovich O. 
Published: June 2023

The article is devoted to the debatable issues of interpretation of the concept of the threat of committing a terrorist act and its signs. There is still no unity of opinion regarding the concept of threat in criminal law, its legal and factual features. This especially applies to such an important sign of a threat as its reality. Recently, in the science of criminal law, there have been opposing positions regarding whether the reality of a threat is an objective or a subjective characteristic of it.The author formulates a personal legal position regarding the definition of the concept of “threat to commit a terrorist act” and the purpose of the threat to commit a terrorist act.The article presents the classification of the forms of the objective side of a terrorist act according to such criteria as the consequence, the method of committing criminal acts, as well as the means of committing the crime (in its presence or absence):the use of weapons, which created a danger to human life and health, causing significant property damage or the occurrence of other serious consequences;the objective side of a terrorist act is the commission of an explosion, which created a danger to human life and health, causing significant property damage or the occurrence of other serious consequences;committing arson, which created a danger to human life and health, causing significant property damage or the occurrence of other serious consequences;committing other actions that created a danger to human life or health or causing significant property damage or the occurrence of other serious consequences (for example, arranging floods, disasters, accidents, collapses, damage to life support facilities, etc.).The article considers different types of goals: according to the criterion of complicated energy action with physical movements (using a weapon, committing an explosion, arson or other actions that created a danger to human life and health, causing significant property damage, the occurrence of other serious consequences) and informational or information-energy action with physical movements (demonstration of weapons, explosives, explosive devices, an object that will be set on fire, etc.) in the form of a threat.In the science of criminal law, the question of a terrorist act and various other aspects of terrorism have aroused the interest of researchers since the beginning of the 20th century. V.F. Antipenko, V.S. Batyrgareeva, Yu.V. Baulin, and V.I. Borisov, L.M. Demydova, T.A. Denisova, S.F. Denisov, O.O. Dudorov, V.P. Yemelyanov, V.S. Zelenetsky, T.B. Isaev, O.A. Kapitonova, O.O. Knyzhenko, V.A. Lipkan, O.M. Litvinov, V.V. Marchuk, I.I. Mitrofanov, S.M. Mohonchuk, A.A. Muzyka, M.F. Musayelyan, V.O. Navrotskyi, V.Ya. Nastyuk, R.S. Orlovskyi, M.I. Panov, E.O. Pysmenskyi, O.E. Radutnyi, V.Ya. Tatsii, V.P. Tykhii, S.A. Trofimov, V.I. Tyutyugin, M.I. Havronyuk, V.B. Kharchenko, V.M. Khomych, P.V. Khryapinskyi, O.O. Shamara, N.M. Yarmysh, S.S. Yatsenko, and others devoted their publications to this issue. However, despite the significant attention of scientists to the theoretical and legislative problems of terrorism, there is still a lack of a generally accepted idea about the essence of a terrorist act as a modern phenomenon, about the mandatory (defining) signs of this crime, provided for in Art. 258 of the current Criminal Code of Ukraine, and its content.