Problems of prevention, detection and counteraction of terrorist and extremist offences during the pre-election campaign of the President of the Russian Federation (based on the materials of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region)

Introduction. The article is devoted to the criminological analysis of terrorist and extremist offences during the pre-election campaign of the President of the Russian Federation. The period of possible, though legitimate, transformation of power for any state is the most responsible, often causing temporary instability of social relations, destabilising normal work of law enforcement and other bodies. As the main means of such destructive activity are mainly extremist and terrorist offences, maximally aimed at discrediting the existing political system. The authors note that for such a city as St. Petersburg, the election of the President of the Russian Federation is of special importance, which, accordingly, affects both the growth of such offences and their qualitative characteristics. In this regard, the election campaign of 2024 was marked by maximum manifestations of opposition, expressed in the most cynical deviant forms. In turn, criminological analysis of such activities is of serious importance for further prognosis of the criminal situation in the period of the future elections, making it possible to develop a set of measures for counteracting such behaviour and ensuring the stability of social relations in the future. Methods. The research is based on the universal dialectical method of cognition, including the analysis of factors and processes of determination of terrorist and extremist offences, as well as a combination of general scientific (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, abstraction, systemic method) and particular scientific (formal-legal, logical, statistical, content analysis of mass media and the Internet) methods of cognition. Conclusion. The authors formulated the priority tasks for the law enforcement system in counteracting terrorist and extremist offences for the future period.