Mugged by reality: Russia's strategic narratives and the war in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the surprising lack of preparedness in Russian propaganda preceding the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Despite previous successes in developing strategic narratives during the annexation of Crimea, Russia underestimated the need for unique communication strategies for the conflict in Ukraine. The article argues that Russia's miscalculation was due to the assumption that it already had a set of strategic narratives in place, from the international order to specific issues, and viewed the conflict as a continuation of the story it had already told. However, increased scrutiny from Western media and academia led to a reexamination of assumptions and attitudes towards the region. Instead of Russia adapting its strategic narrative for a Western audience, it fell back on the existing one, further alienating the audience. This chapter highlights the importance of strategic narrative in international conflicts and its complex relationship with audience perception.

KEYWORDS:

• Misinformation
• disinformation
• Russian hybrid war
• strategic narratives
• Russian propaganda

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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5 Alister Miskimmon, Ben O’Loughlin, and Laura Roselle, Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order, Routledge Studies in Global Information, Politics and Society 3 (New York ; London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2013), 5.

6 Carsten Bockstette, ‘Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques’ (The George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, 2008), http://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/occasional-papers/jihadist-terrorist-use-strategic-communication-management-techniques-0.

7 Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, 89.

8 Ibid, 69.

9 Roselle, Miskimmon, and O’Loughlin, ‘Strategic Narrative’, 76.

10 Ibid, 76.

11 Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, 19.

12 Roselle, Miskimmon, and O’Loughlin, ‘Strategic Narrative’, 80.

13 Ibid, 80.

14 Lowell Barrington and Regina Faranda, ‘Reexamining Region, Ethnicity, and Language in Ukraine’, Post-Soviet Affairs 25, no. 3 (July 2009): 232–56, https://doi.org/10.2747/1060-586X.24.3.232.

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40 Команда «Проекта», ‘Кому мать родна. Часть первая’.

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48 President of Russia.

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58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 For detailed literature review see Kuzio, Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War, 1–33.

61 Anders Åslund, ‘Why Vladimir Putin Is Losing the Information War to Ukraine’, Atlantic Council (blog), 6 March 2022, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-vladimir-putin-is-losing-the-information-war-to-ukraine/.

62 Gregory Eady et al., ‘Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency Foreign Influence Campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US Election and Its Relationship to Attitudes and Voting Behavior’, Nature Communications 14, no. 1 (9 January 2023): 62, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35576-9.

63 Kofman, ‘Russian Hybrid Warfare and Other Dark Arts’.

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67 Юлия Балахонова, ‘Лишь бы была война’, Проект., 18 March 2022, https://www.proekt.media/narrative/uchebniki-istorii-propaganda/.

68 Jade McGlynn, ‘United by History: Government Appropriation of Everyday Nationalism During Vladimir Putin’s Third Term’, Nationalities Papers 48, no. 6 (November 2020): 1069–85, https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2020.20.

69 Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kateřina Fridrichová

Kateřina Fridrichová, PhD. Since 2018 Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations and European politics, Masaryk University, Brno. Received Ph.D. in 2017, dissertation: Humanitarian Intervention. Why Do Western States Intervene? Participated in a project on early warning and prevention of threats emanating from regional conflicts. Current research interests are: humanitarian intervention and R2P, strategic culture of great powers in, philosophy of science meet theories of international relations, and history of the theory of international relations.