Design Features of the Objective Side of Treason and Its Significance for Qualification

When qualifying cases of assistance provided by a Russian citizen to a foreign addressee in carrying out activities against the security of the Russian Federation, the specifics of the objective side of high treason, primarily such an element as “other assistance”, changes in legislation on liability for high treason, increased punishment to life imprisonment, as well as recommendations of the country’s highest judicial authorities on qualifications of manifestations of high treason. Goals and objectives of the study. On the basis of legislative changes of the norm on treason, to indicate that the content of treason, regardless of the specific acts committed, is reduced to the provision of assistance by a Russian citizen to a foreign addressee in conducting hostile activities against the security of the Russian Federation, to disclose the content of individual elements of the objective side, to show the content of such a form of treason as “other assistance” to a foreign addressee in his activities against the security of the Russian Federation, and also to show the proposals of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on the qualification of cases of high treason. Methods: logical, dogmatic, historical. Conclusions. The objective side of treason, representing a simple composite crime, includes any intentional acts aimed at providing any assistance to a foreign addressee in activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation, and not only those acts that are specifically specified in Article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code. The need to consolidate a virtually open list of acts that can constitute high treason is due to the objective impossibility of providing for all its manifestations in the law due to the rapid change in the social, operational and political situation in the world.