[citation needed] On 8 January 1997, President Yeltsin signed the Criminal Correctional Code to regulate the conditions of the sentences.

It begins with in Article 2 a list of "tasks", such as "the protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, property, public order and public security, the environment, and the constitutional system of the Russian Federation against criminal encroachment, the maintenance of peace and security of mankind, and also the prevention of crimes."

[5] In 2009 the plaintiff won the case of Zolotukhin v Russia while the European Court of Human Rights still held sway in the country.

Russia, having been expelled from the Council of Europe as of 16 March 2022,[6] ceased to be a party to the convention with effect from 16 September 2022 in accordance with Article 58.

[7] According to some orthodox conmparstivists, lawyers in Russia are substantially concerned with the principle of mens rea, although they may not recognize it as such.

[10] Article 359 states that “Recruitment, training, financing, or any other material provision of a mercenary, and also the use of him in an armed conflict or hostilities, shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of four to eight years”, so in theory to organize a private military company is in Russia fraught with danger.

In accordance with article 105 of the Constitution of Russia, the body authorized to adopt federal laws is the State Duma.

The special part of the Code consists of 6 sections, 19 chapters and articles 105-361, and describes the composition of specific crimes, as well as lists sanctions (types and sizes of punishments) for their commission.

The system of the Special part of the Criminal Code of Russia reflects the priorities of criminal law protection: crimes against the individual are put in the first place in it, and only then crimes in the field of economics, against public safety and public order, state power, military service, peace and security of mankind.

Federal laws introducing amendments and additions to the Criminal Code of Russia may also specify a special period for their entry into force.

In one of its definitions, the Constitutional Court of Russia gave the following interpretation of the law: "decriminalization of certain acts can be carried out not only by making appropriate changes to criminal legislation, but also by canceling regulatory prescriptions of other industry affiliation, to which the blank norms of the criminal law were referred, or limiting the scope of criminal law regulation as a result of legislative recognition any act that does not pose a public danger, which is peculiar to crimes, and entailing on this basis administrative or other milder responsibility".

[19] In practice, there are cases when, in the period between the commission of a crime and sentencing, the criminal law is changed repeatedly, and the "intermediate" criminal law is milder (up to the decriminalization of the act) than the one in force at the time of the commission of the act or the one in force at the time of sentencing.

141-FZ of July 28, 2012 (which entered into force on August 10, 2012) re-introduced liability for libel (Article 1281 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

A similar situation arose in connection with the entry into force of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on January 1, 1997.

126 of the Criminal Code ("Abduction of a person") in the wording of this normative act provided for punishment from 5 to 15 years of imprisonment.

Article 1251 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which was in force until January 1, 1997, provided for a penalty of 10 to 15 years of imprisonment for a similar act with or without confiscation of property, and the wording of Part 3 of Article 126 of the Criminal Code, which entered into force on February 12, 1999, provided for a penalty of 8 to 20 years of imprisonment.

[20] V. N. Kudryavtsev pointed out that the "interim" law could not be applied, since it was not in effect either at the time of the commission of the crime or during the consideration of the case by the court.

27 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of December 10, 1982 establishes that the jurisdiction of the coastal State applies only to cases when the consequences of the crime extend to the coastal State, or the crime violates the peace of the country or good order in the territorial sea, or if the ship's captain or a diplomatic (consular) representative of the flag State requests assistance to the local authorities, or if these measures are necessary to curb the illicit trafficking of narcotic or psychotropic drugs.

Was modified in October 2013 Article 208, outlawing the "Organization of, or Participation in, Illegal Armed Units" in foreign countries.

The new law provides for a prison sentence of up to 15 years for knowingly disseminating false information about the Russian Armed Forces.