War Crimes of Ukraine Against the Civilian Population During the Special Military Operation

Introduction: in the paper, the authors consider the war crimes committed by the authorities of Ukraine against the civilian population during the special military operation (hereinafter referred to as SVO). It is established that the direct perpetrators of these crimes are both citizens of Ukraine who are part of the armed forces of Ukraine, illegal armed formations, and mercenary militant groups formed from citizens (subjects) of foreign states (for short, in a generalized sense, and further in the text, the above-mentioned armed formations – militant groups (VFU)). They have been accused of perpetrating crimes related to terrorist acts, the use of prohibited means and methods of warfare, the genocide of citizens of the Russian Federation, the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine, as well as other civilians who do not support the policy of the Ukrainian authorities. These acts are committed in the form of rocket and artillery attacks on the settlements within the territory of the Russian Federation, including with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, which has already led to a large number of victims and injured civilians. The law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation are currently making decisions on bringing the perpetrators to criminal responsibility in absentia for committing criminal acts against the civilian population. The purpose of the study is to analyze the war crimes committed by the VFU on the orders of the Ukrainian authorities, as well as to develop proposals for optimizing the criminal legislation and the practice of its application in this area. To achieve this purpose, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: 1) to analyze the VFU war crimes committed within the territory of the Russian Federation against the civilian population; 2) to formulate proposals for optimizing the criminal legislation and the practice of its application. Research methods: the nature of the issues under consideration has determined the application of a set of complementary research methods: theoretical and empirical. The theoretical methods: the study and analysis of the literature and Internet resources. The empirical methods: based on both the periodicals and electronic publications on the Internet to study the war crimes committed by the VFU against the civilian population during the special military operation. The generalization method: the conclusions are drawn based on the results of the work as a whole. The results of the study: the war crimes of Ukraine against civilians are summarized; the proposals are formulated to improve the criminal legislation and the practice of its application for an effective and timely response to emerging threats in this area.