This paper explores the notion of “insult” and “slander” in terms of “Russkaia Pravda”, the Articles of War of Peter the Great, and the contemporary Russian criminal law. The article deals with the common and distinctive features of the terms “affective insult”, “non-affective insult”, “slander” in verbal crimes. It gives a description of the characteristics of these terms and makes a distinction between them. We investigate the role and place of the affect in verbal crimes as well as problems and reasons for their criminalization and decriminalization. We analyze the statistics on verbal offenses filed by the Altai territory Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. The article shows the authors” interpretation of the above relative concepts to be used for a correct qualification of this category of crime. During the study, the authors come to the conclusion that in the interests of consistency and unification of judicial and investigative practice in the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, for detailed and specific explanations are needed to qualify verbal crimes. Such proposals are partially formulated in this article.