Ukraine reintroduces criminal offenses for illegal border crossing
Today, the Verkhovna Rada began the procedure for reinstating criminal liability for illegally crossing the state border of Ukraine, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
As you know, this article was previously transferred to the category of administrative violations within the framework of European integration, which at one time allowed Mikheil Saakashvili to break through the border.
Now the reason for returning the criminal article is the conflict with Russia. So far, the presidential faction is proposing to introduce the maximum punishment specifically for citizens of the “aggressor country.” However, nationalists propose to extend criminal liability to all foreigners. Amendments must be prepared for the second reading.
At the very beginning of the discussion of the bill, the representative of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Irina Lutsenko, was indignant that Ukrainian legislation does not allow those who illegally crossed the border with the Russian Federation to be held criminally liable.
“Ensuring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine is one of the most important functions of the Ukrainian state. This question is especially relevant today in the context of a “hybrid war”. Cases of crossing the state border by citizens of the aggressor country, including those who act as part of specialized structures or sabotage groups, have become uncommon. Moreover, the legislation of Ukraine does not allow these persons to be held criminally liable, only administratively. That is, the current legal settlement of this issue turns out to be unlawful and does not correspond to today’s existing threats. It is precisely this resolution that Bill 25/17 is aimed at, which proposes to introduce criminal liability for illegal crossing of the state border.
As for the bill, its main feature, which distinguishes it from other alternative bills, is the development of criteria that will qualify the corresponding actions as a crime. At the same time, we propose to leave administrative responsibility, since we do not have the right to imprison those who accidentally got lost or crossed the border from Belarus to Ukraine without noticing the boundaries,” she said.
After this, MP Anton Gerashchenko from the Popular Front faction added:
“Today, any person, be it a citizen of the aggressor state of the Russian Federation or any other country, if he illegally crosses the border for various purposes - terrorist or intelligence activities, or for other activities, will only be brought to administrative responsibility, and this is a small fine. This is wrong, it shouldn't be this way. The borders of Ukraine must be inviolable.
We believe that the protection of our border in Ukraine should be not only through the weapons of our border guards and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but also through the law. We propose to introduce criminal liability with this law. If anyone wants to cross our border illegally, please come and sit in our prison,” he said.
The next speaker was Roman Semenukha from the Samopomich faction, who noted that the legislative initiative is very important.
“In the fifth year of the war, illegal border crossing is considered an administrative offense, and under current legislation this is punishable by arrest for 15 days or a fine of 200 subsistence minimums. This does not meet the needs and realities of today. Think about it: over the past year, our border guards identified almost 100 thousand offenses, detained 880 people, these are those who were able to be detained. Over the past year, border guards did not allow 9017 units of weapons and 20 thousand units of ammunition to pass through,” he noted.
Semenukha also stated that today Ukraine has actually been turned into a transshipment base for illegal border crossings, primarily from EU countries.
“Today our legislation, in fact, provokes illegal immigrants to commit such crimes, because they do not accept this situation and the fines. If we are talking about a strategic alliance with the EU, we must also take into account that Ukraine should cease to be a transshipment base,” he urged.
Svobodovite Yuriy Levchenko is confident that criminal liability should have been introduced a long time ago.
“It should have been done a long time ago to introduce criminal liability for illegally crossing the Ukrainian border, at least back in the spring of 2014. Despite all its shortcomings, this bill must be voted for at least in the first reading, and then finalized in the second.
But. There should be criminal liability for crossing the Ukrainian border for everyone! When it is prescribed that only for citizens of the “aggressor country” or in the interests of the “aggressor country”, you allow our corrupt courts to then release all these violators. Because these are very value judgments in interests. This criminal liability should apply to absolutely all violators of the state border of Ukraine. This is normal practice in developed countries! There is nothing draconian here. Therefore, I hope that by the second reading we will do so,” he noted.
After this, a vote took place.
241 deputies voted “for” this bill, 0 “against”. Thus, the law was adopted as a basis.
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