Military criminal law of Russia: its status and prospects

Since the adoption of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of 1996, the legislator, based on the content of Part 3 of Article 331, assigned to the military criminal legislation the role of emergency law, which should be in force only during wartime. The unjustifiability of this decision became obvious after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine. Therefore, by Federal Law No. 365-FZ of September 24, 2022, Part 3 of Article 331 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was abolished, and Chapter 33 «Crimes against military service» was supplemented by a number of crimes committed by military personnel in connection with the performance of a combat task in wartime, in conditions of armed conflict or hostilities, during mobilization or martial law. Thus, in the author’s opinion, military criminal law has regained its status of a sub-branch of criminal law. The purpose of this publication is to determine the status and place of military-criminal law in the system of Russian law and its internal system, to characterize its current state and highlight promising directions of its development.