Mykhailo Sazhniev

Melitopol Boghdan Khmelnytskyi State Pedagogical University, Ukraine

vsegda@ua.fm

Russian culture and management of meaning in introduction of political influence in Ukraine

Joanna Sułkowska

University of Social Sciences, Lodz, 

Poland

jsulkowska@san.edu.pl

Abstract. This paper investigates narratives and ideology of disinformation campaign which Russian Federation launched into information space since February 2014 when undisguised occupation of Ukraine started. At the same time world liberal democracies were also targeted. In this study we examine the role of the national history and people’s cultural self-identification in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Moscow claimed they started the disguised war against Ukraine to protect ‘people who feels a connection to Russian culture’. And this narrative was not just a casus belli, but also the important factor of country’s socio-political destabilization. Russian Federation used Russian culture affinity to raise hostilities between people. Disinformation campaign was simultaneously inciting hostility against Ukrainians at the same time portraying ‘people who feels a connection to Russian culture’ as victims. Common spoken language in Ukraine was used to incite violence and disinformation convinced that those who speak Russian are in peril. While in fact Ukrainian language and culture are country-wide suppressed after Russification period, Russian propaganda stated otherwise. Disinformation campaign was inventing new reality, distorting history and denied Ukrainian ethnocide in 20th century. This campaign brought a number of mercenaries as combatants to the east-Ukrainian battlefield and also turned a number of Russia's propaganda consumers around the world into ‘viral carriers’ of conspiracy theories.

Received: April, 2019

1st Revision: May, 2019

Accepted: January, 2020

DOI: 10.14254/2071-8330.2020/13-1/20

JEL Classification: F5, F54, F52, Z13

Keywords: Ukraine, interdependence, cultural situation, disinformation, post-truth