Problems of defining key definitions of the biological safety sphere «biological risk» and «biological threat» in the current legislation of Ukraine and possible ways to solve them

Ensuring biological safety in any country of the world, in any historical period was one of the defining tasks of state policy since the health and life of citizens, and therefore the normal functioning of the entire state organism, depend on its effectiveness. In the modern period, this problem in Ukraine has acquired particular relevance due to the existing tendency to increase the negative impact of biological factors on the environment and people. The authors of the presented work emphasize that the formation of an effective state policy on ensuring biological safety and its implementation directly depends on the availability of an appro-priate regulatory and legal framework for this. However, the latter does not yet fully meet modern requirements. Thus, to date, a separate Law of Ukraine «On Biosafety and Bioprotection» has not been adopted, which would define, in particular, such key definitions of the sphere of biological safety as «biological safety», «biological risk» and their list. This prompted the authors to conduct a corre-sponding study in the specified context. The article substantiates that the proper provision of biosafety and biosecurity of the state de-pends, among other things, on the correct interpretation of the definitions of the specified categories in the current legislation, as well as a clear definition of their correlation, delimitation and awareness by the relevant entities of the security and defense sector of Ukraine to ensure the processes of form-ing and implementing state policy in this area. An analysis of the works of domestic scientists, as well as the drafts of the Law of Ukraine «On Biological Safety and Biological Protection of Ukraine», which were prepared and published by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine in 2021 and the Ministry of Health in 2023, which provide the formulations of the concepts of «biological safety» and «biological risk», was conducted. Done conclusion that the approach to solving this problem, which is based on the etymological origin of the terms «threat» and «risk», is justified. Since biological risks and threats are one of the main categories of biological security, and the latter is an integral element of the national security system, biological risks and threats are a priori threats to national security. Therefore, when formulating definitions of biological risks and biological threats, it is necessary to proceed from the definitions of the concepts of risks and threats to national security. On this basis, the author’s formulation of the definitions of the specified categories is proposed.