UDK: 342.9

Valery An. Novikov - Candidate of Law, associate professor, Russian University of Transport (MIIT), Moscow, Russia

Valentina Iv. Shiyan - Candidate of Law, associate professor, Russian University of Transport (MIIT), Moscow, Russia

Abstract. At present, mass riots, despite the insignificant number of registered crimes envisaged by the Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the persons who committed them, as well as the relative static nature of this type of crime (based on the results of 2023-2024), should be considered as a threat to public safety of the Russian Federation. Our position has been determined by the fact that mass riots encroach on public safety and public order; they are accompanied by violence, pogroms, arson, property destruction, use of weapons, explosive devices, explosives, poisonous or other substances and objects; as a rule, they are of an organized nature, provoked by extremist-minded elements and used by them in the struggle for power; they are associated with acts of terrorism, they disrupt the normal functioning of the individual, society and the state. Mass riots’ participants, unlike other categories of criminals, are characterized by a heightened degree of public danger, since most of them have previously been subject to criminal liability, and almost every second person is a member of an organized criminal group, and every third person is without a permanent source of income. The current paper contains the study results of the state and dynamics of crimes envisaged by the Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, committed both in Russia as a whole and in the regions, taking into account statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the period from 2020 to 2024. There have been presented the study of the Russian criminal legislation, materials of judicial practice and scientific works. Particular attention has been paid to criminal law measures to prevent mass riots. According to the authors, the problems arising in the qualification process are due to the absence of a legal definition of “mass riots”, the presence of evaluative features in the disposition of Article 212 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, competition with the elements of crimes against the person, property, public order and management order, and other circumstances identified during the study.

Keywords: public safety; public order; mass riots; violence; pogroms; arson; property destruction; use of weapons; armed resistance to a government official.

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Novikov V.A., Shiyan V.I. Mass riots as a threat to public safety of the Russian Federation // Transport law and security. 2025; (1(53)):134―145.