The dissertation is an independently completed scientific work, in which, on the basis of the presented criminological characteristics of terrorist acts in large cities of Ukraine, the persons who commit them, as well as the analysis of the system of determinants that lead to the commission of such criminally illegal acts, a comprehensive system for prevention of terrorist acts in large cities of Ukraine is proposed for the first time in domestic science in the conditions of martial law.
This research systematizes the main stages of the scientific sources formation regarding research, where the subject is terrorist acts, namely: the period of origin, which originates from ancient civilizations – until the end of the 17th century; the period of high interest in «pre-revolutionary» and «revolutionary» terrorism (18th – early 20th centuries); the period characterized by studies of left-wing terrorism, right-wing terrorism, and Islamic terrorism (1960s – the first decade of the 21st century); the modern period of knowledge transformation into an independent direction of criminological research (from 2014 to the present). It was determined that each of the
stages has characteristic historical, political-ideological, socio-economic, organizational-legal and other features.
The work emphasizes that a terrorist act is one of the most negative, dangerous and resonant socio-legal phenomena of our time, which poses a threat to all spheres of state functioning and the society, and also causes the people death, creates a fear atmosphere, tension and chaos in society, harms public safety, destabilizes the socio-political situation, undermines the law enforcement agencies reputation, negatively affects on the modernization process and state ingration into the European space, causes significant political, economic and moral consequences, etc. The terrorist act acquired a significant value in the large cities of Ukraine, where not only an increasing in the level of terrorist acts are observed, but also the appearance of their new configurations can be traced.
It is substantiated that the large cities of Ukraine are significant urban settlements with a clearly defined territory, with a total population from 500 thousand or more, which performs the function of the administrative center of the region and concentrates
a complex of political, economic, scientific, educational , spiritual, cultural, transport, medical and other society life spheres and state functioning. The large cities of Ukraine are an object of criminological research. They are include: the capital of Ukraine – Kyiv;
as well as cities of interregional and regional importance – Kharkiv; Odesa; Dnipro; Lviv; Zaporizhzhia.
It has been established that in the modern world, a terrorist act is an integral part of political and economical processes and represents a threat to the national and public security of the country, having turned from isolated manifestations into a mass phenomenon. The absolute majority of terrorist acts are urban in its nature. Up to 70 % of terrorist acts are steadily charged in the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Lviv and Zaporizhzhia cities compare with the above mentioned state’s region. From 2014 to
2022, a total of 375 terrorist acts were recorded in large cities of Ukraine, namely: in the city of Kharkiv – 130, in the city of Kyiv – 89, in the city of Dnipro – 71, in the city of Odesa – 67, in Zaporizhzhia – 12, in the city of Lviv – 6 terrorist attacks, respectively.
The analysis of the territorial and spatial spread of terrorist acts showed that from 2014 to 2022, the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Lviv were unevenly distributed and belonged to different groups – with a high, medium and moderate level of crime. Kharkiv is the big city most affected by terrorist acts, with an average rate of 4 crimes per 100,000 city population, followed by Dnipro – 3; Odessa –3; Kyiv – 2; Zaporizhzhia – 1 and Lviv – 1 crimes of this type per 100,000 city population, respectively. Large cities of Ukraine are characterized by an unsatisfactory situation in the ratio of the terrorist acts quantity to the identified terrorist criminals
quantity. Based on the results of studying the judicial practice about terorrist act cases in the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, Lviv and Zaporizhzhia, we found that the crimes provided for in Art. 258 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, are quite often occur
together with other criminally illegal acts – in almost 45 % of cases.
Basis on the defining personal features of those who commits terrorist acts in large cities of Ukraine, a criminal general portrait was built: this person is a male, both young and adult (from 18 to 60 years old and older), a citizen of Ukraine, with a basic higher
(55.0%) or full secondary (25.0 %) education, unmarried, did not work or study anywhere at the time of committing such crime.
