Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Research Journal part 1. Language, Nazification, and the media reporting.

I will use this space to post my thoughts, ideas, and observations related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This will take the form of research notes; the main aim is to document the events and have a hub for research notes and ideas available to the public.

On 24 February 2022, Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border from Belarus, starting a full-scale military invasion. Leading up to the attack, Russia had been amassing troops in Belarus, primarily close to the border between Belarus and Ukraine, under the pretence of conducting yearly military exercises. Even if moving such large quantities of troops had not gone unnoticed by western intelligence agencies and international analysts, Russia denied all accusations of preparing for war. There have been many suggestions of how Putin could advance floating around, starting from Russian troops helping the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk and stopping there to Putin attacking a NATO country. Unfortunately, people who were convinced that the war would not happen were wrong. Russia invaded Ukraine, even though Russia’s official sources keep refusing to call it a war.

The Kremlin’s current narrative of Ukraine being taken over by the Nazis is not new. We can see that the “Nazis rule Ukraine” narrative has not been explicitly created for the war in 2022; it has been used since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Before the referendum was conducted, the Kremlin’s anti-Nazi campaign in Ukraine was more tacit, creating an underlayer of meaning based on the shared collective memory of the Great Patriotic War. The threat of Nazism was not explicitly stated. Still, the shared meaning of this threat was easily conveyed via different means of communication, especially images (banners) encouraging people to vote in favour of Russia in the referendum. Such propaganda was not massively worrying at the time, but now, looking back at it, we can see that it had laid the foundation for Russia’s anti-Nazi pro-war rhetoric.

This is an example of successful securitisation. Securitisation is a political process that allows a political actor to circumvent normal political processes and gain power and resources based on fighting an existential threat. This methodological framework requires us to look back at the events that have already happened, so it has limited use for predicting the future. Still, it is invaluable to analyse the past. Thus, the people of Russia and Crimea, who have been prepped with the anti-Nazi rhetoric for years, were ready for the war rhetoric of Vladimir Putin.

Putin’s portrayal of Russia’s military attack on Ukraine has been consistently shaped as a “response to the aggression of the West/Nazis”. Examples of this narrative can be found everywhere in the state-controlled media; I use Russia Today and TASS news agency as examples here. As many analysts have pointed out, Putin’s plan was most likely a swift attack on Ukraine and a successful advance to Kyiv; however, it has not worked out this way as the Russian forces still have not taken Kyiv. If you look at screenshots from 1 March, you will see that both RT and TASS use very aggressive, defensive, and often degrading language to support the narrative of Russia responding to the threat from Ukraine/the West.

However, as the Russian attack on Ukraine has continued, the language of the militarisation narrative has been changing. The following screenshots were taken on 4 March, and you can see that the state-controlled media has significantly toned down the language used to report on the situation in Ukraine. Both RT and TASS are using quite a neutral language; the level of hostility is nowhere near what it was just a few days ago. The language used here is more reporting than condemning.

Despite the deterioration of the domestic economic and security situation, the language of the reporting has stayed the same: much more neutral. Even dramatic events such as banning Meta, including Facebook and Instagram, are covered in a more factual than emotional way.

Thus, it can be seen that a drastic shift in the language that Russia’s state-controlled media have used to report on the situation in Ukraine and the relations with the West occurred at the beginning of March, and the language has stayed consistently more neutral ever since.