Unfriendly and Hostile Actions of Foreign States as Grounds for Applying Measures of Administrative and Legal Protection of State Sovereignty

The paper is devoted to the study of issues related to the regulatory legal framework governing unfriendly and hostile actions by foreign states as grounds for activating measures of administrative and legal protection of state sovereignty. These actions, while synonymous from the standpoint of the Russian language, differ significantly in their factual and legal content and require distinct legal regulation. Hostile actions, unlike unfriendly ones, are extremely aggressive and unlawful, and consequently, necessitate stricter response measures, as well as a special procedure for their imposition and termination. For this purpose, it seems most appropriate to introduce targeted amendments to the Federal Law «On Measures to Influence (Counteract) the Unfriendly Actions of the United States of America and Other Foreign States». A detailed study of the legal foundations of unfriendly actions has led to the following conclusions: the legal grounds for responding to unfriendly actions are not specified and are scattered across a large number of regulatory legal acts of various hierarchies; the procedures for imposing different protective measures against unfriendly actions vary; there is no unified approach to the timelines for imposing and enforcing measures to protect Russia’s sovereignty from unfriendly actions; often, the imposed measures for sovereignty protection are not properly justified, which creates problems in law enforcement, including in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of individuals and organizations. Having analyzed a significant number of acts, the author concludes that it is necessary to clarify the criteria for classifying actions of foreign states as unfriendly and to adjust the procedural issues related to imposing measures to protect state sovereignty from such actions.