| 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. |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4316/CC.2023.01.10
Codrul Cosminului. Issue 1 (Vol. 29) / 2023
2023-07-31 – Pages: 193 – 216
Fragment
Following the Cold War, world politics underwent groundbreaking
transformations. The collapse of the Soviet Union triggered an abrupt shift from
a bipolar to a unipolar system of governance. As its regional influence grew, the
Russian Federation attempted to implement a general overhaul in its political
system patterned upon Western politics. Instead, a series of overlapping
economic, social, and political crises ensued. In the early 2000s, Soviet nostalgia
gained momentum in Russian society 1 , which was longing for Moscow’s long-
forgotten superpower status. Following the election of Vladimir Putin as
president of Russia, local elites began to emphasize the need for Russia to
reclaim its position as a global power.
In his 2005 address to the Russian Federation’s Federal Assembly,
Vladimir Putin referred to the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest
geopolitical disaster of the 20 th century, stating that millions of Russians
suddenly found themselves outside their country’s borders 2 . Two years later, on
the verge of the Munich Security Conference, the Russian president criticized the
United States’ domination in international relations. The Kremlin leader pointed
out that a unipolar system of global order does not serve the best interests of
world states, while NATO expansion poses a major threat to the Russian
Federation’s national interests 3 .
1 Levada-Center, Nostalgiia po SSSR [Nostalgia for the USSR], in
https://www.levada.ru/2021/12/24/nostalgiya-po-sssr-3/ (Accessed on 20.05.2023).
2 Poslanie Federalnomu Sobraniiu – 2005 [Message to the Federal Assembly of the
Russian Federation – 2005], in http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931
(Accessed on 20.05.2023).
3 Speech and the following discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, in
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034 (Accessed on 20.05.2023).
The 2013 Foreign Policy Concept reflected Russia’s dissatisfaction with its
regional power status. According to this official document, international
relations have shifted from a unipolar system towards a multipolar global
structure. At the same time, the concept outlined a new alternative Russian
understanding of international relations. Russian foreign policy founding
document referred to Ukraine as a “priority partner within the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS)”. Moscow’s goal in Ukraine was stated as
contributing to this country’s “participation in extended integration processes”
launched by the Russian Federation in the context of growing challenges to the
unipolar system of international politics 4 .
As American political scientist, Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested in his
influential volume The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives, the Kremlin’s ambition of restoring its global power status cannot
happen without turning Ukraine into a territory under Russia’s control. “Without
Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire” 5 , Brzezinski wrote, highlighting
the existence of an independent Ukrainian state.
In this context, the hybrid Russian-Ukrainian war launched in 2014
resorted to an array of information and psychological warfare narratives and
operations. From the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 to President
Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24,
2022, the Russian Federation’s leadership promoted various official narratives 6 .
In his book, Russia’s Hybrid Aggression. Lessons for Europe 7 , Ukrainian political
theorist Yevhen Mahda analysed the discourse of political leaders of the Russian
Federation concerning Ukraine, arguing that Moscow-based decision-makers
have studied the reactions and expectations of their peers in Kyiv and Western
states. In the Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war, the Kremlin kept a close eye on the
reactions of Western leaders and specific information processes in ex-Soviet
4 Kontseptsiia vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii – 2013 [The Concept of Foreign Policy
of the Russian Federation – 2013], in
http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d447a0ce9f5a96bdc3.pdf (Accessed on
03.04.2023).
5 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1997, p. 45.
6 Anastasia Lejepekova, Putin obyavil o provedenii specoperacii po zashchite Donbassa
[Putin announced a special operation to protect Donbas], in
https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/news/2022/02/24/17336791.shtml (Accessed on
03.04.2023).
7 Yevhen Mahda, Hibrydna ahresiia Rosii. Uroky dlia Yevropy [Russia’s Hybrid Aggression.
Lessons for Europe], Kyiv, Kalamar, 2017, p. 8.
space. Examining narratives publicized by Russian media as well as by political
leaders in Moscow, Marian Voicu’s Matryoshka of Liars: Fake News, Manipulation,
Populism outlines the anti-Western character of the Kremlin’s information
policies, starting with the so-called “Euromaidan” 8 pro-European protests in
Ukraine (2013-2014). According to the author, Russia’s narratives operated with
a limited number of themes and approaches systematically promoted at several
levels of Russian official media.
Political scientist Joanna Szostek of the University of Glasgow points to a
rivalry between “pro-Western and anti-Russian” narratives projected by Kyiv, on
the one hand, and “pro-Russian and anti-Western” narratives endorsed by
Moscow, on the other 9 . Andreas Kappeler of the University of Vienna also
investigates narratives fostered by the political class in the Russian Federation
through the lens of political history and the imperial legacy in Russian-Ukrainian
relations. According to the author, these relations are characterized by an
asymmetry of narrative discourse, which reflects Russia’s hegemony over
Ukraine 10 . Researcher Eva Claessen of The Leuven Center for Global Governance
Studies examines how official narratives popularized by the Russian Federation
regarding Ukraine took on an increasingly aggressive tone after Kyiv shifted
towards European integration as the defining element of its foreign policy 11 .
It is worth mentioning that research in recent years has provided a
comprehensive picture of particular connections between Russian official
discourse and media narratives. This paper examines these connections in the
wider context of the hybrid war when conventional military actions are
accompanied by non-military initiatives 12 . It was additionally necessary to
structure official Russian narratives about Ukraine from the 2014-2022 period
while keeping disinformation and fake news campaigns 13 in view. In this study,
8 Marian Voicu, Matrioșka mincinoșilor: fake news, manipulare, populism [Matryoshka of
Liars: Fake News, Manipulation, Populism], Bucharest, Humanitas Publishing House,
2018, p. 87.
9 Joanna Szostek, The Power and Limits of Russia’s Strategic Narrative in Ukraine: The Role
of Linkage, in “Perspectives on Politics”, Vol. 15, Iss. 2, June 2017, pp. 379-395.
10 Andreas Kappeler, Ukraine and Russia: Legacies of the imperial past and competing
memories, in “Journal of Eurasian Studies”, Vol. 5, Iss. 2, July 2014, pp. 107-115.
11 Eva Claessen, The making of a narrative: The use of geopolitical othering in Russian
strategic narratives during the Ukraine crisis, in “Media, War and Conflict”, 2021, Vol. 14,
iss. 1, pp. 1-18.
12 Marian Voicu, Matryoshka of Liars…, p. 12.
13 Marin Gherman, Narațiuni ale dezinformării și fake news utilizate de Rusia până la
invadarea Ucrainei [Narratives of disinformation and fake news used by Russia prior to
the term “official narrative” refers to the narrative structures represented by
statements, discourses, documents, and articles published by Russian political
leaders in state-controlled media and on various websites. It also investigates
the statements of political leaders who dictate the foreign policy of the Russian
Federation according to the Constitution 14 , as well as presidential decrees 15 . The
analysis focused on the president of the Russian Federation, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, their spokespersons, and the Russian government media
channels that helped disseminate official messages about Ukraine. These official
narratives were researched using a set of methods and tools specific to the field
of political communication 16 and language analysis 17 .