“Ukraine commits genocide on Russians”: the term “genocide” in Russian propaganda

Abstract

According to Russia, the main reason for starting the war with Ukraine on February 24, 2022 was the genocide of the Russian-speaking population by the Nazi government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In this paper I investigate the Russian claims about genocide. These claims are shown to be part of the rhetorical frame Russophobic Nazi Ukraine government commits genocide on Russians, an aspect of Russian propaganda which builds on the Second World War. I demonstrated that this frame is itself an aspect of a more abstract frame, where any perceived enemy of Russia, is portrayed as a fascist or Nazi force that aims to destroy Russia and Russian culture. I investigate how this frame emerged and developed over time in five stages, starting in post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine, and in Russia after the Orange and Maidan revolutions in Ukraine. Russia tries to provide argumentation for the validity of the frame by referring to a number of objectively established facts relating to the situation in the Donbas, Ukraine’s language laws, and the presence of right-extremists in Ukraine. In doing so, some ideas are made more salient than others (the language laws that diminish the official status of Russian in Ukraine and the hostilities in the Donbas region), while other ideas are suppressed altogether (e.g. the juridical meaning of genocide, the actual status of right-wing extremism in Ukraine, the role of Russia in the hostilities in the Donbas, and the actual status of the language laws in Ukraine). In all of these cases, the arguments used by Russia are not valid, being based on exaggerations, hyperbolic use of terminology, and lies. The main goal of this frame is to acquire and retain support for Russia’s policy toward Ukraine, as well as to deflect any potential criticism on Russia itself. Ultimately, the Russian propaganda is part of the concept Russkij Mir ‘Russian World’, where Russian language and culture are a means to restore President Vladimir Putin’s Russian sphere of influence from Soviet times or earlier.

Publicly Underrepresented Genocides of the 20th and 21st Century: A Review

“…Fortuin's [41] article examines the use of the term "genocide" in Russian propaganda related to the conflict in Ukraine. Wordplay is critical, and Fortuin argues that the Russian government and media have deliberately and inaccurately used the term to portray the conflict as an ethnic conflict and to justify Russian intervention in the region [41].…”

“…Fortuin's [41] article examines the use of the term "genocide" in Russian propaganda related to the conflict in Ukraine. Wordplay is critical, and Fortuin argues that the Russian government and media have deliberately and inaccurately used the term to portray the conflict as an ethnic conflict and to justify Russian intervention in the region [41]. The author analyzes the language used in Russian propaganda and demonstrates how the term "genocide" has been used in a way that does not align with the legal definition of the term and has significantly impacted how the conflict is perceived in Russia and internationally [41].…”

“…Wordplay is critical, and Fortuin argues that the Russian government and media have deliberately and inaccurately used the term to portray the conflict as an ethnic conflict and to justify Russian intervention in the region [41]. The author analyzes the language used in Russian propaganda and demonstrates how the term "genocide" has been used in a way that does not align with the legal definition of the term and has significantly impacted how the conflict is perceived in Russia and internationally [41]. The main objective of the article is to provide a detailed analysis of Russian propaganda related to the conflict in Ukraine, including the use of language and images to portray the conflict in a certain way.…”

“…The main objective of the article is to provide a detailed analysis of Russian propaganda related to the conflict in Ukraine, including the use of language and images to portray the conflict in a certain way. The author argues that using the term "genocide" in Russian propaganda is a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation and has significant consequences for the conflict and its resolution [41]. Lastly, the article discusses the legal definition of genocide and the implications of misusing this term in a political context.…”

Automated Multilingual Detection of Pro-Kremlin Propaganda in Newspapers and Telegram Posts

“…While Russian propaganda creates a 'cacophony' of fabricated opinions and sources in its media ecosystem [32], it also has a number of uniform strategies and approaches which are recurrently mentioned in research throughout the whole of Russian-Ukrainian war by international bodies and independent researchers [8,16,28,49]. Hence, we hypothesize and aim to prove that propaganda can be successfully detected using certain stylistic and syntactical features behind these strategies, independent of keywords.…”