Messaging strategies of Ukraine and Russia on Telegram during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
The popularity of the instant messaging app Telegram in Ukraine and Russia was already high before the still-ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, since 24 February 2022
(when the Russian invasion began), it has seen huge increases in subscribers and has even become the primary communication and news source in Ukraine. In this exploratory
research, we analyzed Telegram channels from both Ukraine (@UkraineNow — the official channel of the Ukrainian government, and @V_Zelenskiy_official — the official channel
of Volodymyr Zelenskyy) and Russia (@rt_russian — the official channel of the news network RT) to understand communication patterns in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Our
analysis of 37,172 posts showed that while @UkraineNow is being used in particular to communicate invasion-related news, @rt_russian is working as a mere extension of RT, which
is part of the pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation ecosystem. However, Zelenskyy has opted for a completely different approach: he is using his Telegram channel to
encourage Ukrainians and to garner support from the world. Thousands have lost their lives and millions have become refugees in this war that has now gone on for more than a year.
Our timely research seeks to determine how both countries’ governments utilize Telegram as a weapon in an information war and the impact of this information war on the ground.
Contents
Introduction
Literature review
Methodology
Results
Discussion
Conclusion and limitations
Introduction
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine: The present situation
On 18 March 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea — a peninsula in eastern Europe — from Ukraine. After that, Russia focused its attention on the Donbas, the southeastern region
of Ukraine: in April 2014, Russian separatists supported by Russia established the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in that region. By 2020, the conflict
in Donbas had claimed about 14,000 lives (Pifer, 2020). Then, in the early months of 2021, Russia began amassing thousands of soldiers and military equipment near its borders with
Ukraine and Crimea (Shuster, 2022). On 24 February 2022, in a televised address, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced a “Special Military Operation” in the
Donbas, thus beginning a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Bloomberg News, 2022).
