Almanac of law. Issue 17 (2026), pages 310–316.

DOI: 10.33663/2524-017X-2026-17-310-316

Kvasha R. S.
War as a form of political violence: criminological dimension

The Russian-Ukrainian war actualized the problems of war as a criminological, criminal-legal, internationallegal, political-scientifi c phenomenon. It is obvious that the study of war, its forms and types in the 21st century.

Can contribute to the creation of an eff ective system of countering violence as an interstate phenomenon. Russian military aggression was not an absolutely unpredictable phenomenon, since Russia’s aggression against Georgia in 2008 became an objective prerequisite for the escalation of political violence by Russia against European states.

Under such circumstances, the war should be considered as a theoretical example of a criminological problem, the study of which is of great importance for the development of eff ective state policy in the fi eld of national security.

The terms “war”, “aggressive war” are enshrined in the Criminal Code of Ukraine in Articles 43-1, 297, 427, 436–438, 443, 444. In criminological science, it is imperative to be interested in the concept of war in various forms of its conduct in the 21st century. Hybrid aggression is a hidden form of war. Therefore, war is not always an open form of violence.

It is obvious that the “cold war” and “hybrid war” are close in meaning, but are not identical. During the Cold War, there was no direct military clash of states, while the hybrid war of today includes both non-military and military means to achieve a political goal.

The concept of violence is quite well studied in criminology, unlike political violence and war. Political violence is associated with the concept of political power and political motives, while war is the most dangerous and organized form of political violence. A logical chain is formulated: violence — political violence — war as a relationship between the general, the particular and the individual. Only criminology, having an interdisciplinary nature, studies such a subject as war in the context of political violence.

The position on the isolation of a separate branch of modern criminology — the criminology of war is criticized. In our opinion, this is too narrow an approach. War is the extreme, most dangerous and well-organized manifestation of collective political violence.

The Russian-Ukrainian war as a type of organized political violence used by Russia against the independence of Ukraine in order to deprive Ukrainians of their national identity. War as a criminological problem appears not only as a political or military phenomenon, but as a large-scale, organized and collective form of political criminally punishable violence, characterized by specifi c causes, mechanisms of origin and development, as well as large-scale socio-legal consequences.

Keywords: political violence, hybrid war, cold war, aggression, political criminology, political motive, armed aggression, organized form, collective violence, state policy.

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Дата першого надходження рукопису до видання: 11.03.2026
Дата прийнятого до друку рукопису після рецензування: 09.04.2026
Дата публікації: 30.04.2026