The essence of investigative actions is determined by the goals and objectives of pre-trial criminal proceedings. According to the verification material and the criminal case, the investigative actions are aimed at forming evidence that determines the correct qualification of the crime, creating conditions for proper criminal prosecu-tion of a person involved in the commission of a crime and the legaland justified application of criminal law to him, as well as the restoration of an object protected by the criminal law, violated by a criminal act. A specific feature of determining the additional purpose of investigative actions at the stage of initiation of criminal proceedings is associated with the establishment of the presence or absence of signs of a crime and the decision to initiate or refuse to initiate criminal proceedings. The Criminal Procedure Law does not disclose the concept and list of investigative actions, which makes it difficult to determine the actions prohibited after the suspension of the preliminary investigation of a criminal case. Investigative actions and other procedural actions are referred by the legislator to the methods of collecting evidence. The use by the legislator in Part 1 of Article 86 of the Criminal ProcedureCodeof the Russian Federationthe notion of “other proceedingsˮcreatesthe problem of delimiting investigative actionsfrom other proceduralones. There is “confusionˮin determining the list of inves-tigative actions, when the legislator, regulating in article 164–170 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation the General rules of investigative actions, their list includes the seizure of property, sale, disposal or destruction of material evidence. These actions are not cognitive in nature. The authors propose to capturein clause 41.1 of Article 5 of the Criminal Procedure Code the notion of investigative actions as “governed by the provisions of chapters 24–27 of the Criminal Procedure Code, criminal procedure actionscarried out by the authorized officer in order to build evidence relevant to the investigation and resolution of the criminal caseˮ. The procedural mechanism for conducting investigative actions must contain fundamental provisions of legality that requireclear legal regulation of the production of each investigative action, which, in fact, is a postulate.