Public calls for the aggressive war as a crime under Russian law: discussion aspects

The subject of this study is the composition of the crime established in Article 354 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author draws attention to the fact that this crime is not new to the criminal legislation of Russia: criminal liability for the propaganda of aggression was already provided for in Soviet legislation, its introduction taking place after the Great Patriotic War. The article presents an examination and analysis of the specified composition of the crime, as well as raises a number of problematic questions, such as the differentiation from the institution of complicity, the distinctions between propaganda and public calls, and the characteristics of qualified compositions. The author separately addresses the issue of qualifying public calls in the information space, including the use of the Internet, as special graphic images – emoji symbols – are becoming widely spread. In preparing the study, the author used formal-legal, historical, comparative methods, as well as methods of analysis, deduction, and induction. The main conclusions of the conducted research are that public calls for unleashing an aggressive war are understood as statements expressed in any form, aimed at inciting the intention to unleash an aggressive war among an indefinite circle of persons. At the same time, the calls must be specific: their form must clearly indicate the actions to which the offender is calling; therefore, emoji symbols without textual accompaniment cannot represent a call to commit anything. The scientific novelty of the work also lies in the fact that the author identified differences in the concepts of "propaganda of aggression" and "public calls for unleashing an aggressive war" to resolve questions about the content of the objective side of the latter. The composition of the crime is formal – the crime is complete from the moment of the public call, regardless of the outcome.

public calls, propaganda of aggression, aggressive war, digital space, emoji symbols, complicity, aggression, crimes of aggression, graphic images, unleashing war