Criminal-legal characteristics of military criminal offenses

The article emphasizes that the topic of military criminal offenses is extremely relevant in the context of violations of legality and discipline in the military sphere. Taking into account the change in the geopolitical environment, the increase in threats to national security, the spread of armed conflicts and hostilities, these problems become especially important. It is noted that the legislation establishing liability for military offenses has many problems in this area, because the conflict between criminal and administrative liability of military personnel remains unresolved, there is no clear definition of the subject and object of military criminal offenses. The relevance of the study is emphasized by the fact that after the full­scale invasion of Russia in the Ukraine, there is a tendency to spread criminal offenses against the established order of military service (military criminal offenses). According to statistics, during the first half of 2022, their number increased from 1.6 thousand in 2021 to 6017 thousand, which means an increase of 370%. However, the number of criminal proceedings sent to court with an indictment increased by only 22%. These statistics show the prevalence of such criminal offenses as: Art. 407 ("Unauthorized abandonment of a military unit or place of service”), Art. 408 ("Desertion”) and Art. 402 ("Disobedience”) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. During 2022, a total of 4350 were recorded, compared to 71 in 2021. 664 criminal proceedings were sent to court [1]. This indicates that legislative regulation in the context of the military aggression of the Russian Federation, which poses a threat to the existence of Ukraine as an independent democratic state, should be aimed at overcoming shortcomings in regulations establishing legal responsibility for war offenses. Within the framework of the study, the signs of military criminal offenses and their types by the object of encroachment were established, the subjective and objective signs of the criminal composition of this group of offenses were analyzed, in particular, attention was focused on the peculiarities of the composition of individual military criminal offenses.