Criminal protection of state secrets in Ukraine and EU countries

The aim of the study was to outline the differences between certain aspects of the system of state secrets protection in Ukraine and some countries of the European Union EU, which provides the basis for determining the directions of improvement of the national system of state secrets protection. The following general scientific methods were used in the article: analysis and synthesis, deduction and induction, analogy. As a result of the research, the following aspects of criminal protection of state secret in Ukraine and the EU countries identified for comparison were considered: definition of state secret, types of information classified as state secret, levels of secrecy, terms of classification, liability for disclosure of state secret. The methodological contribution of the study are the recommendations for the improvement of certain aspects of the system of state secrets protection in Ukraine. It is concluded that, the direction of future research should also be the disclosure of features and measures to optimize the procedure of security checks of persons having access to classified information.