In the article the authors examine certain problems of qualification of smuggling of timber being one of the types of strategically important goods and resources for the Russian Federation. These problems are stipulated by the specific of the legislative structure, as well as by the difficulties of interpreting this corpus delicti. Within the frame of the research it was established that that most difficulties in law enforcement activity arise in the course of criminal-legal assessment of the objective signs of timber smuggling and, mostly, of the subject of the corpus delicti under consideration and modus operandi of the crime due to the specifics of timber being the object of smuggling. In order to solve problems stated in the article, the authors analyze such ob-jective signs of corpus delicti provided for by Art. 2261 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as a subject and an objective side on the basis of materials of of-ficial statistics, judicial practice and criminal law doctrine. As a result of the conducted analysis the authors’ recommendations on the qualification of timber smuggling are formulated. Thus, the authors clearly identified the established in the current customs legislation a list of types of timber related to the subject of the crime provided for by Art. 2261 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; the most common modus operandi of timber smuggling in judicial practice are explained; the moment of completion of the criminal encroachment under analysis is clarified, and the amount of damage necessary to qualify the timber smuggling under Art. 2261 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are defined.