How the Russian media conflated the 2014 Ukraine Crisis with the Second World War

What is it about?

Russian domestic media presented events in Ukraine in 2014 within a highly selective interpretive framework of the Second World War. By conflating pro-Maidan protestors with perceived Nazi collaborators, and pro-Russian fighters as Red Army soldiers, the Russian media and government presented a revolution in a neighbouring country as an assault on Russian national identity and history. In this way, events in Ukraine were depicted as threatening not only political stability but also the legacy, and even outcome, of the Soviet/Russian victory in the Second World War. I analyse how this conflation was achieved, examining a variety of innovative methods, such as hyper-representation and chronological mirroring, alongside media devices borrowed from the Soviet period, such as characterisation, in order to develop a working definition of 'historical framing' as a Russian media technique.

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Why is it important?

I define the way in which the Russian media use a variety of techniques to conflate past and present in their coverage of the Ukraine Crisis. My findings show that this conflation has important consequences not only for the interpretation of events in Ukraine but also for the way in which patriotism is perceived and performed in Russia as an act of shared remembering.

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