Criminal liability for planning, preparing, starting, or waging an aggressive war and public incitement to start it according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The paper presents the scope of the legislation governing the crime of planning, preparing, starting, or waging an aggressive war (Article 353) and public incitement to start it (Article 354) contained in the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. These crimes are discussed according to the statutory characteristics of the acts. As part of the study of this issue, a thesis was formulated, which is a conjecture that criminal liability for the crimes in question is regulated in the 1996 Russian Criminal Code in a casuistic and strict manner, but one that takes international solutions into account. The research methods used in the study were a dogmatic analysis of the 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and a literature analysis of pertaining to the crimes in question. During the analysis of the two crimes referred to in the title, interpretation problems and shortcomings of the existing solutions (understanding of basic concepts, casuistry of the legislation, and severity of the sanctions) were pointed out. The considerations confirmed the adopted thesis.