Framing the Russia-Ukraine war : The case of the most popular Russian and Ukrainian Telegram news channels

This is a study of how the most popular Telegram news channels in Russia and in Ukraine framed the Russia-Ukraine war during the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Telegram is one of the most popular social media in Russia and Ukraine, it is a source of news for many people in both countries, and it had been used for propaganda before. This makes the Telegram news channels a relevant research topic in light of the fact that the war still continues in late 2022. The author uses his Ukrainian and Russian language skills and background to add to the war framing and propaganda research, especially in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The study uses framing analysis to find the specific frames of the war. This work partially detects the war-related frames which were used in other military conflicts. Moreover, it finds new frames which were unique for the Russia-Ukraine war. The findings show that the most of the used frames are different between the countries, like framing the war as a necessity in the Russian case and a judgemental style of writing in Ukrainian case. However, there are some similar frames which are still used differently by the sides, like dehumanizing strategies to describe the enemy or historical narratives