Academia.eduAcademia.edu

The Russian-Ukrainian War in Ukrainian Political Discourse

2021, Political Studies

Abstract

The proposed article aims to explore the discursive dynamics of Ukraine caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war. The semantic and pragmatic dominants of relevant political texts were revealed by the method of discursive and content analysis. The article considers the peculiarities of the political discourse of Ukraine after the beginning of the military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2014. Discursive changes in wartime are analyzed through comparisons with the pre-war state, the leading feature of which was the mode of „brotherhood” with Russia. In the course of the analysis it was established that there was no logical immediate change to a „hostile” discourse with the beginning of the Russian aggression. Ukraine was unprepared for an adequate response to Russia's military aggression not only in real but also in discursive terms. Instead, a euphemistic complex was formed in Ukrainian political discourse to present Russia's aggressive actions as something...