What makes strategic narrative efficient: Ukraine on Russian e-news platforms
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231161272 |
| Author | Natalia Chaban,Svitlana Zhabotynska,Michèle Knodt |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231161272
Cooperation and Conflict
2023, Vol. 58(4) 419 –440
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367231161272
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What makes strategic
narrative efficient: Ukraine on
Russian e-news platforms
Natalia Chaban , Svitlana Zhabotynska
and Michèle Knodt
Abstract
Contributing to the ‘narrative turn’ in International Relations and offering an answer to the
question ‘What makes a strategic narrative efficient?’, this article adds to the methodological
theorization of the formation and projection phases of the narrative’s lifecycle. We suggest that
the impact of the constructed image in the narrative can be reinforced by the interplay of at least
three projection properties: (1) content accentuation and priming, through iterations; (2) content
contextualization, through historical and cultural resonance with the consumers’ memories; and
(3) content verbalization, through narrative tactics that evoke a range of the consumers’ involved
attitudes to the framed image. These properties, being intrinsic ingredients of the projected
content, tend to enhance emotions. In our work, they get traction in the antagonistic narrative
tailored by the Russian propaganda to depict Ukraine orientated towards the European Union
(EU). The empirical case study analyses articles published on the Russian e-news platforms
portraying the EU granting Ukrainians visa-free travel to the Schengen area in 2017, a milestone
in Ukraine–EU relations. We define Russia’s narrative, created in reaction to this event, as
antagonistic and consider it to be a precursor of the aggressive narrative crafted/employed by
Russia to justify its 2022 military assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Keywords
antagonistic narrative, formation and projection phase, research methodology, Russian
mainstream media, strategic narrative, Ukraine–EU relations, visa-free travel
Introduction
24 February 2022 – the day of the Russian Federation’s military full-scale assault on
Ukraine – marks a watershed in the geopolitical history of the 21st century. While this act
Corresponding author:
Natalia Chaban, Department of Media and Communication, University of Canterbury, 20 Kirkwood
Avenue, Upper Riccarton, Post Box 4800, Christchurch, 8041, New Zealand.
Email: natalia.chaban@canterbury.ac.nz
1161272CAC0010.1177/00108367231161272Cooperation and ConflictChaban et al.
research-article2023
Article
420 Cooperation and Conflict 58(4)
of aggression took many commentators by surprise, an attentive look into the Russian
strategic narrative – the story furthering an official political strategy via the construction
of ‘a shared meaning of the past, present and future of international politics to shape the
behaviour of domestic and international actors’ (Miskimmon et al., 2013: 2) – sheds light
on the historically complex contexts behind the roots of this aggression. Several key
inputs shape these long-term contexts, influenced in a major way by the 2012 elections
in the Russian Federation (hereafter Russia), which secured Putin an unprecedented third
term in the Kremlin. Following a series of ‘colour’ revolutions in the post-Soviet space
in the early 2000s, culminating in Ukraine’s Maidan in 2013–2014 and the annexation of
Crimea in 2014, the 2016 Foreign Policy Concept of Russia formulated a particular mes-
sage about the country’s role in the modern world. In it, ‘Russia seeks to achieve its
strategic goal of establishing a sphere of influence in its neighborhood and projecting its
status as a “global player”’ (Herd and Marshall, 2016: 10). In compliance with this ‘sto-
ryline’, Russia was narrated as prioritizing the value of sovereignty and non-interference
by others in its domestic and foreign affairs while openly stressing its regional suprem-
acy in the post-Soviet space, vis-à-vis the Euro-Atlantic expansion into this region. The
post-Soviet independent states, opposing the post-USSR reintegration and aspiring to
escape the traditional geopolitical sphere of Russian influence in favour of the West/the
European Union (EU), were perceived by Russia as a threat (Headley, 2018). Accordingly,
the later strategic formulations – and specifically the essay ‘On the Historical Unity of
Russians and Ukrainians’ by Putin (2021) – framed sovereign Ukraine in strongly antag-
onistic terms.
We assert that the study of strategic narratives is not merely an exercise in heuristics,
but a powerful tool with which to understand broader geopolitical phenomena in a world
in flux – where the multilateral International Relations (IR) are at risk of failing vis-à-vis
the ‘great power’ politics. Critical voices in the scholarship of political narratives ask
how exactly they can mobilize groups (Dixon and Gellman, 2020) or, in other terms,
‘What makes a strategic narrative efficient?’ Answering this question requires new
research methodologies to which this article aims to contribute. Here, the proposed
methodological framework is further applied to the analysis of the successive versions of
Russia’s strategic narrative on Ukraine. We argue that since the disintegration of the
USSR, this narrative has developed within the oppositional scale ‘SELF/GOOD versus
OTHER/BAD’. Here, Ukraine, initially identified as SELF/GOOD (a part of the USSR
headed by Russia) came to be recognized first as NOT-OTHER/NOT-BAD, then NOT-
SELF/NOT-GOOD and, finally, OTHER/BAD (a ‘traitor’ to the USSR ‘family’ with
Russia as the ‘senior brother’). Our study considers the NOT-SELF/NOT-GOOD and
OTHER/BAD versions, where the portrayals of Ukraine are defined as the antagonistic
(pre-escalation of the war in 2022) and the aggressive (following the 2022 full-scale
invasion) narratives respectfully. In this article, we intend to reveal the properties of
Russia’s antagonistic media narrative on Ukraine, with the study of its further aggressive
version to follow. Thereby, we clarify some important dimensions in the relationship
between Russia and Ukraine relevant for the understanding of the retrospective setting of
Russia’s surge of aggression.
The research methodology we employ contributes to the scholarship on the strategic
narrative of its formation and projection life phases. The analysis of the formation phase
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