Criminal Code establishes the legal framework for criminal liability. It is based on the Constitution and international legal principles and aims to protect individuals, property, public order, society, the state, and the environment, while preventing crime and restoring justice. The Code defines what constitutes a crime, the grounds for criminal responsibility, and the system of punishments and other legal measures applicable to offenders. It also enshrines fundamental principles such as legality (only acts defined by law are punishable), legal certainty, equality before the law, individual guilt, justice, and humanism.
This Criminal Code punishes the following criminal offences: (a) practice of traditional (popular) medicine by a person who does not have a higher medical education and has not undergone special training in the field of traditional (popular) medicine; organization of illegal migration, illegal import (export) of migrants; forced use of labor (slave labor), including in relation to a child between the ages of fourteen and eighteen; intentional or careless violation of sanitary and epidemiological rules, which, through negligence, resulted in significant harm; (b) illegal collection, harvesting and cultivation of living organisms containing one or more narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues and precursors; (c) cruelty to animals; destruction of rare and endangered animals or plants listed in the national Red Book, or destruction of their clutches or eggs; illegal hunting, including the use of prohibited hunting gear; (d) illegal fisheries or catch of aquatic animals causing significant damage, including those committed in spawning grounds or on migration routes thereto; (e) destruction of or damage to forests, peat bogs or other natural objects by arson or other generally dangerous method, illegal felling or damage to the extent of stopping the growth of trees and shrubs in forests or protective or green areas that are not part of the state forest fund, as well as illegal felling or damage to the extent of stopping the growth of protected trees or particularly valuable tree species in any place, resulting in significant damage; (f) cattle theft, i.e. the secret theft of someone else's livestock, intentional or careless violation of veterinary rules regulations, which, through negligence, resulted in significant harm; (g) illegal production of alcohol and alcoholic beverages, production or sale of goods, performance of work or provision of services that do not meet the requirements for the safety of life or health of consumers, as well as the illegal issuance or use of an official document certifying the compliance of the specified goods, work or services with safety requirements; (h) pollution or littering of waterbodies (surface or groundwater) with wastewater, industrial, household and other types of waste and refuse, as well as prohibited fishing and aquatic animal fishing gear, operation of a water intake structure or pumping mechanism, as well as the construction of a bridge, dam, the implementation of blasting and other work with intentional or careless violation of fish stock protection rules; (i) unauthorized seizure of another's land plot and unauthorized construction on agricultural lands in violation of its intended purpose, failure of an official or landowner to take measures to prevent the unauthorized seizure of land, bringing land into a condition unsuitable for use in agricultural production and (or) violating the integrity of a land plot for subsequent change of its intended purpose, intentional or careless violation of the rules for handling pesticides, plant growth stimulants and other hazardous chemical or biological substances during their storage, use and transportation, which, through carelessness, resulted in poisoning, pollution or other damage to the land; and (j) concealment or distortion of information about events, facts or phenomena that pose a danger to the life or health of people or to the environment, committed by an official of a state body, local government body, state or municipal institution, which, through negligence, resulted in significant harm, violation of environmental protection rules during the performance of work, violation of rules for the handling of environmentally hazardous substances and waste, atmospheric pollution.
The Code also addresses forms of guilt (intent and negligence), stages of crime (preparation, attempt, and completion), complicity, and circumstances affecting criminal responsibility. It sets rules on the territorial and temporal application of criminal law, extradition, and the legal consequences of convictions.