The Evolution of the Russian Federation’s Official Anti-Ukraine Discourse

Abstract

The article focuses on the evolution of the Russian Federation’s official discourse concerning Ukraine, from the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 to the official decision to invade the Ukrainian state on February 24, 2022. During this period, various official messages were launched in the public sphere to prepare Russian society for the next phases of the hybrid war or were designed to shape a series of social attitudes on the territories of other states that would favour political leaders in Moscow. The Kremlin resorted to a plethora of specific communication tactics: the launch of several official narratives at the same time, some of which were subsequently discarded; challenging the legitimacy of Kyiv authorities; fostering the idea that Ukraine was an artificial state created by Russia; launching certain debates in the public sphere regarding the historical unity of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples as well as the build-up of neo-Nazi tendencies on Ukrainian territory. Official narratives endorsed by the Russian Federation were a special mix of international law and historiography topics. Russian media outlets disseminated them as part of disinformation and fake news campaigns. This paper is an analytical effort to organize official Russian narratives about Ukraine promoted over 2014-2022, before the large-scale invasion.

Keywords

• russia
• ukraine
• hybrid warfare
• disinformation
• fake news
• narratives