Keywords

Introduction

Our chapter addresses two perspectives that inform this volume’s quest to explore new realities facing the EU during the escalation of the war against Ukraine. First, the introductory chapter reminds us that the “Russian attack on Ukraine and the ensuing war has challenged a number of established narratives and convictions, not only in the global order, but also for the European Union and its member states” (see the contributions by Knodt and Wiesner, Smith, and Wiesner, in this volume). Second, the war also “underlines that we are living in a multipolar world order—geopolitically, economically, ideologically and legally, and the EU has to position itself in this setting” (see Wiesner, in this volume). Finally, the introductory chapter is clear about the reaction to the new realities triggered by the war: “the EU has to position itself in the new geopolitical and ideological world order and become a geopolitical player” (Knodt and Wiesner, in this volume).

This chapter builds on the above arguments. The reality of the multipolar world with the proliferation of state and non-state actors on the world stage, the existential crises and the fight for resources means that there is an increasing competition in international relations, and with that, an increasing competition of norms and values. Relevant literature talks about the ‘battle of narratives’. This chapter provides an insight into this ‘battle’, comparing the narratives of Ukraine circulating in the EU and wider Europe vis-à-vis narratives of Ukraine elsewhere in the world.

Ukraine, fighting for its sovereignty, identity and survival, is on the frontline of the battle of narratives. An EU candidate as of June 2022, Ukraine witnesses its self-narrative evolving into the narrative of a proactive agent in charge of its own destiny (Chaban and Elgström 2023) and an actor in the epicentre of European integration (Zhabotynska et al. 2023). This chapter demonstrates that Ukraine’s new self-narratives may differ from the narratives outside of Ukraine. The latter are often divided, if not split. Relevant literature observes such divisions in the West (including the EU) vs. the non-Western world (Garton Ash et al. 2023), as well as within Western outlooks. Our comparative focus is on the narratives of Ukraine and the war against Ukraine projected by media from Europe, China and the Global South. Engaging with the findings of several large-scale comparative studies, we offset media findings with insights into representative public opinion surveys and contextualize our observations against two backgrounds. The first is particular framings of Ukraine and the war in Western knowledge-producing discourses (texts created by academics and think tank communities). The second is Russian antagonistic narratives disseminated through the communication channels globally.

To feature the ‘battle of narratives’, this chapter’s design is intentionally interdisciplinary. It weaves in perspectives from the studies of the EU, media and communication, sociology, as well as narratives in International Relations, and cognitive linguistics. Its interdisciplinary settings and methods add value to this volume, contributing innovatively not only to the studies of the EU facing major geopolitical upheavals, but also to the arsenal of interdisciplinary didactic tools in EU studies. In the latter case, the chapter underlines that in the ensuing ‘battle of narratives’—leading to human sacrifices in the case of Ukraine—narratives must be explored with robust empirical tools. This chapter proposes a novel analytical algorithm, instrumental for tracking fine-grain details which are critical for the valid reconstruction and interpretation of political narratives.

We start this chapter with a review of global public opinion on Ukraine. We then argue two inputs that may explain narrative divisions and map a range of global media narratives. The first section overviews existing research on divided narratives of Ukraine among knowledge-producers. This cohort is argued to influence the imagination of more educated audiences around the world. The next section features our original take on the analysis of media narratives in Europe (post-Communist European states), the Global South and China—the geopolitical areas that have been exposed to the USSR/Russian information projection historically. In this section, we dissect the notion of the antagonistic narrative strategies in global information flows and track if, and how, local media narratives of Ukraine/the war against Ukraine may resonate with pro-Kremlin narratives, and warn of a wider public appeal of such narratives. In our concluding discussion, we ask what this growing misalignment of narratives globally means to the EU and Ukraine, as an EU candidate state that continues its fight for survival. We conclude it is paramount for EU officials, media and the public to keep track of the evolving narratives in the public sphere, not only to navigate a rapidly changing geopolitical environment effectively, but also to defend its community against narratives dividing the societal fabric of the EU and undermining its values.

Split of Global Public Opinion on Ukraine in the Context of the Russia-Ukraine War

Global Trends

Ukraine’s tenacious resistance and the courage of its people rebuffing the escalation of the Russian aggression have influenced the imagination of the world. Perceptions of Ukraine had risen globally. Global Soft Power Index 2022 (Brand Finance 2022) found that following Russia’s full-scale invasion, global perceptions of Ukraine are changing: “with familiarity increasing by an extraordinary 44%, influence by 24%, and reputation by 12%”. The same survey registered that “the unprecedented media spotlight on the conflict and a global rally of support for Ukraine in the face of aggression have had a positive knock-on effect on the nation’s perceptions across most other Global Soft Power Index metrics, even those unrelated to the war effort” (Brand Finance 2022).

Yet, most recent studies observe that public opinion around the world is not homogeneous. Recognizing the Russian war against Ukraine as being undoubtedly a “turning point in world history”, some commentators note a growing split between public opinion on the war in Ukraine in Western countries (the “united West”) vs. “the rest” (Garton Ash et al. 2023). Analysing a poll undertaken in December 2022–January 2023 in nine EU countries (Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain), the UK, the US, China, India, Turkey and Russia, Garton Ash et al. (2023) observe strong resonances between European and US respondents when it comes to outlooks on the key issues in the world. Reflecting on Russia’s war unleashed against Ukraine, Europeans and Americans share a common systemic narrative—they “agree they should help Ukraine to win, that Russia is their avowed adversary” (Garton Ash et al. 2023). At the same time, respondents from China, India and Turkey have a different perception: they “prefer a quick end to the war even if Ukraine has to concede territory”: 42% in China, 48% in Turkey and 54% in India (Garton Ash et al. 2023).

Europe-Specific Trends

The polls in the nine EU member states (France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden) and the UK demonstrate that European public opinion on the situation around Ukraine is not as consolidated as it seems at first sight. Indeed, in some instances, it follows the outlooks expressed in the non-Western countries discussed in the previous section. Kelmendi and Piaskowska (2022) find that in response to questions about Ukraine’s accession into the EU in the context of the Russia’s war against Ukraine, the level of support varied between different European countries. Polish citizens were the most supportive (70%), while German, French and Italian citizens were both the least supportive and the most opposing (Fig. 10.1). Romanian respondents were also among the least supportive (48%) yet also the most undecided (34%).

Fig. 10.1
Support-Blue; Oppose-Red; Don't know-Gray. Soure: Datapraxis and YouGov, May 2022.

In response to the situation involving Russia and Ukraine, would you support or oppose Ukraine's accession into the EU? In per cent (Kelemendi and Piaskowska 2022, citing source: Datapraxis and YouGov, May 2022)

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Kelmendi and Piaskowska, focusing their analysis on supporters of Ukraine’s accession, point out that this group of the EU (and the UK) citizens tends to share a common narrative on the evolution of Europe. Firstly, they perceive major security threats emanating from Russia, and specifically from the use of nuclear (69%) or chemical weapons (53%). At the same time, the perceived threat of economic losses is much less prevalent. Supporters attach great importance to their countries breaking away from dependency on Russian oil and gas, and with urgency (71%). Moreover, “80 per cent of EU citizens who support Ukraine’s accession are strongly in favour of cutting all economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties with Russia”, while “90 per cent of them agree that the EU should accept more Ukrainian refugees”. This is vis-à-vis 59% in the opponent camp (Kelmendi and Piaskowska 2022).

A positive attitude towards Ukraine’s accession correlates with specific narratives around the Russian war against Ukraine: “More than 70 per cent of supporters want to increase EU sanctions on Russia, provide greater economic and military assistance to Ukraine, halt imports of Russian fossil fuels, back Ukraine’s admission to NATO, and deploy troops to eastern Europe”. The authors also note that supporters are “slightly less enthusiastic about enforcing a no-fly zone and deploying EU member states’ troops in Ukraine—but, still, a plurality back both measures” (Kelmendi and Piaskowska 2022).

The opponents to Ukraine’s accession to the EU echo the opinions expressed by the non-Western countries discussed above—they want a swift end to the war (60%). They also tend to perceive economic losses as a result of the war (views most pronounced in Germany and France); e.g., rising energy prices and the increased cost of living. The opposition to Ukraine’s membership of the EU is thus linked to fear of the negative economic and political consequences. There is also a difference between supporters’ narratives of how Europe should build its relations with Russia: while 43% blame Russia for the war and 53% see Russia as the main obstruction to peace, most opponents to Ukraine’s accession to the EU do not want to cut all ties with Russia. European opponents of Ukraine’s accessions to the EU parallel the non-Western opinion (discussed above) when it comes to military help to Ukraine: “a resounding 79 per cent and 80 per cent of opponents are against the deployment of EU member states’ troops to Ukraine and Ukraine’s accession to NATO respectively. Sixty-one per cent of opponents are against further arms shipments to Ukraine, while 63 per cent do not want to deploy more troops to NATO’s eastern flank” (Kelmendi and Piaskowska 2022).

US-Specific Trends

The split in the perception of Ukraine in Europe resonates with that in the US. In his series of lectures, Snyder (Cнaйдep 2022) explains it historically as a result of inconsistency between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ narratives of Ukraine. For Snyder, the old, partially alive narratives tell a peculiar story of Kyiv and Moscow being always together historically. In these narratives, Russia is not questioned, while Ukraine is perceived as being suspicious, marginal, provincial, if not doubtful. As such, for some Americans it is difficult to imagine that Russia may actually lose the war to Ukraine. However, for Snyder, the war may be the facilitator of change in the narratives.

Where do such diverging, if not split, narratives originate? Koval et al. (2022), who studied the reflections on the war in Western (US and EU) academia and think tank communities, argue how these elite knowledge-producing discourses may shape the opinions of a significant part of the more educated population in a particular, divided manner. Another answer comes from our consideration of the political tool of Russian information warfare, and specifically their mastery of projecting antagonistic narratives worldwide. Below, we consider these two inputs in brief.

Divided Narratives: European and US Knowledge-Producers

Koval et al. (2022) observed academia and think tanks’ discourse on its narration of the war against Ukraine in the EU’s states France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Poland, as well as in the US and the UK. Their research demonstrated that on the level of the nation-states in the EU, the narratives formulated by academia and think tankers range from “unprovoked aggression by Russia, which needs to be deterred” (in Poland) to “acknowledgment of Russian blame paired with a soft approach toward the aggressor” (in Germany) to “the ‘Gaullist–Mitterandist’ maxima of the need to cooperate with Russia in order to weaken US influence and increase France’s political weight in Europe” (in France) or in “justifying the Russian aggression by historical legitimacy” narrating Ukraine as an “obstacle/circumstance in relations between the West and Russia” (in Italy) (Koval et al. 2022). The findings illustrate how the split in narratives about Ukraine formulated by academia and think tanks may ‘splinter’ the image of Ukraine in the eyes of more educated citizens and elites across the EU member states, the UK and the US, as well as around the world among international readers.

Koval et al. identified “major pitfalls of (mis)perceptions and (mis)representations of the ‘Ukraine crisis’” (Koval et al. 2022, 176). The authors found that the key narratives of the Russian-Ukrainian war produced by influential Western knowledge-shapers convey a “realist pressure for seeking a quick, even if unjust, solution, … encouraging scholars and analysts to advocate compromises and concessions” (Koval et al. 2022, 175). Another major characteristic of these narratives is the “symmetrization of responsibility and a tendency to blur the difference between the victim and the perpetrator”. On the one hand, such opinion originates in response to a “normative pressure for seeking exclusively peaceful resolutions to every conflict” (Koval et al. 2022, 175). On the other hand, it is facilitated by the “dominant principle of academic neutrality, which accounts for the symmetrization of responsibility and a search for politically neutral and academically correct ways to describe conflicts, even those including invasion of one country by the other” (Koval et al. 2022, 175). Koval et al. argue there is an in-built bias within Western academia traditionally to focus on Russian history, politics, culture and language in much more intense manner than on those of any other Slavic or post-Soviet country. In contrast, for Koval et al., “(pro) Ukrainian points are often rejected outright as inherently biased, as there is more suspicion of discourses that undermine the conventional wisdom” (Koval et al. 2022, 175). In their final conclusion, Koval et al. argue that the “war of narratives, propaganda, and disinformation via social and ordinary media has become one of the most important weapons in this conflict” (Koval et al. 2022, 175).

Divided Narratives: International Workings of the Russian Antagonistic Narratives

A substantial body of literature examines Russia’s use of information as a political tool applied domestically and globally. Reviewing this large and rapidly growing body of work is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here, we limit ourselves to engaging with a concise overview of this extensive field by Deverell et al. (2020). The authors point to Russia’s efforts to create an “uncertain and conflict-ridden communication environment” through the “projection of information as part of an endeavour to harm and undermine others” (Deverell et al. 2020 quoting Yablokov (2015); Watanabe (2017); Ramsay and Robertshaw (2019); Szostek (2020)). The authors remind us that the information—as a policy area—gets a rather specific interpretation in the Russian policy-making, namely as a national security tool (Deverell et al. 2020 quoting Russian Government 2015). They cite Szostek who compares this interpretation of media reporting in Russia to a ‘zero-sum’ game in which Russia “must fight their hostile Western rivals for supremacy, including by projecting disinformation and aggressively criticising other states” (Szostek 2020, 2729, 2740). This argument echoes Pynnöniemi (2018) who suggests that the leading cause behind such adverse narratives is the perceptions of Western threat to Russia.

Deverell et al. (2020) examine different areas targeted by the Russian media’s information flow, arguing that the first target has been “states within Russia’s sphere of influence, as defined by the Kremlin”. However, they also cite multiple works that observe wider “destabilising effects” (Szostek 2018) directed, for example, at the Nordic countries (e.g., Sweden (Wagnsson and Barzanje 2021; Wagnsson and Lundström 2022; Hoyle et al. 2023), Norway, Denmark, Finland (Deverell et al. 2020) and the Netherlands (Hoyle et al. 2023)). These studies ask how adverse narratives are constructed in their pursued strategy of division.

Addressing the call for “more analysis of how narratives are constructed to be able to assess their harmful capacity” (Deverell et al. 2020, 16), we turn to the notion of the antagonistic narrative strategies in IR proposed by Wagnsson and Barzanje (2021) after having analysed Russian state media projections towards Sweden. For the authors, these are the narratives endowed with a harmful discursive capacity, demonstrated through three major communicative strategies—those of suppression, destruction and direction. Suppression intends to accomplish a status shift of a country in the international arena. Status loss for the narrated means status gain for the narrator. Whereas suppression is about altering the status of a country, destruction is about rendering it weak via damaging, denigrating or undermining its capabilities. Direction intends “to steer the narrative towards a preferred behaviour by way of implicit inducement” (Wagnsson and Barzanje 2021, 241). It is about “leading the other away from ‘bad’ towards ‘good’ behaviour” (Wagnsson and Barzanje 2021, 251), and guiding the other away from an undesired posture, policy or behaviour, towards a preferred one.

Exploring the impact of the antagonistic narrative strategies by the Russian state media, Wagnsson and Lundström, in their experimental work, found that: “Russian strategic narratives, published by the state-controlled online platform Sputnik, resonated with Swedish readers, despite the fact that they did not reflect the readers’ previous experiences, and were perceived as unstructured”. The latest findings suggest that “information influence projected through strategic narratives can be effective regardless of the form of the message and even when introducing unfamiliar ideas to the audience” (Wagnsson and Lundström 2022, 13). Such evidence indicates a need to explore other factors that may influence a narrative's persuasiveness: for example, “how narratives link to cultural factors and national myths” and “how different groups respond to informational influences” (Svensson 2023). The former position echoes Miskimmon and O’Loughlin who contextualize the Russian narration “against the background of strife to reinstate Russia as a global force, a project interlinked with historical views of past and present” (Miskimmon and O’Loughlin 2017 as cited by Deverell et al. 2020, 17). Such research would widen the agenda of the emerging study on narrative effectiveness that argues, among its key inputs, the “recognition and emotional connection to the characters in a narrative”, as well as “the clarity and engaging power of narratives” (Svensson 2023).

In our previous research, we also attempted an answer to the question ‘What makes a strategic narrative efficient?’ (Chaban et al. 2023). We analysed Russia’s online news media narratives about Ukraine, addressed to both its own citizens, as well as Russian-speaking readers around the world. We suggest that the impact of the constructed image in the narrative can be reinforced by the interplay of at least three projection properties: (1) content accentuation and priming, through iterations; (2) content contextualization, through historical and cultural resonance with the consumers’ memories; and (3) content verbalization, through narrative tactics that evoke a range of the consumer’s involved attitudes to the framed image. These properties, being intrinsic ingredients of the projected content, tend to enhance emotions. Russia’s narrative, created in reaction to a milestone event in EU-Ukraine relations (granting the no-visa entry to the Schengen area to Ukrainian citizens), was revealed as antagonistic, with the three strategies of suppression, destruction and direction employed.

In summary, we argue that research on the diverging global narratives of Ukraine will benefit from a comparative investigation and a systematic engagement with the notion of the antagonistic narrative strategies in global information flows. Our contribution to this comparative research is the study of pro-Russian narratives of the Russia-Ukraine war that are spreading worldwide and causing the split of public opinion on Ukraine and its European course.

Comparative Analysis of Pro-Russia Media Narratives of Ukraine disseminated Worldwide

Data and Methodology

In our study, the data comprise three sets of media messages (discrete narrative topics) that fit into the global ‘Russia-Ukraine war’ narrative with a pro-Russia bias. The latter means that the messages, created outside Russia, resonate with those manufactured and disseminated by the Russian mainstream and social media antagonistic to Ukraine and its international partners. The 136 analysed messages rendered by 3,370 instances (or empirical textual descriptions featured in the message) have been borrowed from research papers focused on tracking the pro-Russia narratives of the war in Ukraine. These messages emerged in the mainstream and social media throughout the world at particular time spans, starting with the beginning of Russia’s escalation of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. In total, the data’s time frame covers a period from March 1, 2022, to February 22, 2023.

The first dataset—the narratives addressing the European audience (69 messages featured by 1,332 instances)—is informed by one of the Detector Media projects conducted by the team of researchers from 11 countries who analysed social media posts (on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram) to identify common and distinct narratives of Russian propaganda (Ryabosthtan et al. 2022). The posts, written by social media users from the post-Communist states—Bulgaria, Hungary, North Macedonia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine—were tracked by this project in July 2022.

The second dataset—the narratives addressing audiences in the countries in the Global South (27 messages exposed in 1,160 instances)—is informed by another Detector Media research of the key narrative topics related to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine extracted from the media outlets in 11 countries of the Global South (Pivtorak et al. 2023). The media in these countries were observed between December 19, 2022, and February 22, 2023. The Detector Media research team summarized reports about Ukraine released by 2,700 of the most popular media outlets. The ones from Asia are located in India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. The African media are from Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, and the South American media are from Brazil and Argentina.

The third dataset—the narratives crafted by China for the global audience (68 messages delivered in 878 narrative instances)—comes from the study concerned with portrayal of Ukraine and the West in the English-language edition of The Global Times Chinese daily in March–May 2022 (Zhabotynska and Ryzhova 2022). The Global Times is a satellite of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper The People’s Daily. Through its English edition, The Global Times is “bringing its unvarnished opinions around the globe”—to the US, Europe and South Africa (Huang 2016). With over 8 million daily page views, The Global Times’ website has a strong presence in the English-language media and thus has become a potentially powerful resource for delivering strategic narratives intended for shaping public opinion around the world (Zhabotynska and Ryzhova 2022).

In each of the above data sources, the narrative messages represented by multiple samples were grouped in accordance with the specific goals pursued by the researchers. In our study, the thematic grouping of narrative messages enables the comparison of the three datasets. Such comparison intends to expose the topics which are shared by the ‘stories about Ukraine’ told to different audiences, as well as the topics targeted at particular addressees. The methodology used for the thematic arrangement of our data is taken from the studies of narrative concepts structured with a cognitive ontology (Zhabotynska and Velivchenko 2019; Chaban et al. 2023). The latter presents the information in the narrative concept (which occurs in multiple thematically homogeneous media texts) as structurally arranged, with such arrangement being governed by a particular algorithm.

The algorithm employed in our analysis is used to structure information about an event with regard to its invariable referents (participants, or ‘actors’) that are constitutive for the ontology’s domains. The Russia-Ukraine war is an event evolving in the international context. Respectively, the invariable referents exposed in the media narratives are: (1) RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR, (2) UKRAINE, (3) RUSSIA, (4) WEST/US, (5) US, (6) EUROPE, (7) NATO/US, (8) NON-WESTERN WORLD (GLOBAL SOUTH) and (9) WORLD. First, the narrative messages in each of the three sets of our data are distributed between these referential domains. Second, each domain and the messages of each domain are analysed with regard to their salience, or prominence, demonstrated by the number of narrative instances in which they are exposed. The degree of salience demonstrates the ‘visibility’ of the messages and their domains, which is important for their entrenchment in the public opinion. Third, the narrative content available in different datasets, when similarly structured, can be compared, so as, on the one hand, to expose the overlaps of the messages and, on the other hand, to demonstrate what makes them distinct. These differences may be accounted for by the specificity of the targeted audience. The proposed comparative analysis enables a specification of the ‘European’ narrative perspectives: (a) the narrative addressed to Europe depicts it as a ‘viewer’ of the international stage; (b) the narrative targeted at the other parts of the world feature Europe as an ‘actor’ on the international stage.

Applying the above methodology to process the overall information about the Russia-Ukraine war, portrayed in the three datasets of our study, facilitates the accomplishment of its other research objectives. These are exposure of the antagonistic narrative strategies of suppression, or the shifting down of the international status of an actor; destruction, or damaging the image of an actor; and direction, or steering an actor to a preferred behaviour (Wagnsson and Barzanje 2021). Another objective is the matching of the research findings to the criteria of efficiency demonstrated by the strategic narrative (Chaban et al. 2023). The criteria relevant for this study are content accentuation and priming through iterations, and content contextualization, or historical and cultural resonance with the audience’s memories.

Analysis

The total scope of the narrative instances from all three sets of data (3370) shows obvious salience of UKRAINE (799, or 23.7%), RUSSIA (687, or 20.4%), and WEST/US (941, or 27.9%), with the domain NATO/US being also prominent (404, or 12.0%) (Table 10.1).

Table 10.1
A table of total scope of the narrative instances from all three sets of data shows obvious salience of UKRAINE 799, or 23.7%, RUSSIA 687, or 20.4%, and WEST or US 941, or 27.9%, with the domain NATO or /US being also prominent 404, or 12.0%.

Salience of thematic domains in the pro-Russia world media narratives of the Russia-Ukraine war

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The domain which retains its high salience throughout the three datasets is WEST/US. The domains UKRAINE and RUSSIA are highly prominent in the European and Global South research segments, while the domains US and EUROPE are accentuated in the Chinese segment. The domain NATO demonstrates substantial relevance in the Global South and Chinese segments.

Each domain subsumes the narrative messages which differ in number. The most thematically ‘diverse’ stories are those about UKRAINE (37 messages) and the WEST/US (31 messages). Nearly half as diverse are the ‘stories’ about RUSSIA (19 messages) and NATO/US (16 messages). Still less varied are the narratives of EUROPE (10 messages), the US (7 messages), and the WORLD (7 messages). The least thematically varied are the narratives of the NON-WESTERN WORLD (GLOBAL SOUTH) (5 messages), and the RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR (4 messages). Within the domains, the messages may differ in salience and, therefore, their relevance for a dataset. Below, are highly salient messages (with the number of instances approaching and exceeding 25) that get traction in all three data segments, in two of them, or in one segment only—European (E), Global South (GS) or Chinese(C). The messages of excessive salience (with the number of instances approaching and exceeding 70) are given in italics.

Europe, Global South, China: UKRAINE: Ukraine is a Nazi country. It is ruled by Nazis who slaughter the innocent citizens of Donbas (86: E-40, GS-35, C-4). RUSSIA: Sanctions against Russia are ineffective; Russia has adapted to them (113: E-55, GS-55, C-3). WEST/US: The West /US benefits from the war (191: E-14, GS-145, C-32).

Europe, Global South: UKRAINE: Ukrainian military are targeting civilians and committing other war crimes (83: E-77, GS-6). RUSSIA: The reports on Russia’s war crimes are fake (102: E-27, GS-75). Russia succeeds on the battlefield, and it will win the war (83: E-28, GS-55). NATO: NATO is weak; NATO cannot stop Russia (137: E-2, GS-135).

Europe, China: RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: This is not a war between Russia and Ukraine, but a conflict between NATO/US and Russia (43: GS-39, E-4). UKRAINE: The Western military support is misused or stolen. Ukraine may illegally sell Western weapons (31: 29-E, 2-C). Ukraine and the West have tensions; Ukraine is dissatisfied with and suspicious of its European partners (49: 40-E, 9-C). WEST/US: The West and the US use Ukraine as a tool in their proxy war against Russia (77: E-52, C-25). The US, the West and NATO are responsible for the war in Ukraine (71: E-33, C-38). The US and the West supply Ukraine with weapons, and thus aggravate the military crisis (46: E-25, C-46). US: To pursue its own geopolitical interests, the US controls and manipulates European and other countries (32: E-15, C-17). EUROPE: For Europe, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is the foremost security threat because of the humanitarian crisis and supplying Ukraine with arms (21: E-3, C-18).

Global South, China: UKRAINE: Ukraine has a pro-western regime which is a puppet of the West (43: 34-GS, 9-C). NATO/US: NATO provoked Russian aggression against Ukraine; the US and NATO ignored Russia’s need for security; NATO, led by the USA, moved eastward and threatened Russia, which was beneficial for the US (105: E-77, C-28). NON-WESTERN WORLD (GLOBAL SOUTH): Global South supports Russia; non-Western countries disapprove of the sanctions against Russia (30: GS-9, C-21).

Europe: UKRAINE: Ukraine is losing the war. (E-124). The Ukrainian leaders are corrupt and/or incompetent (E-60). Ukrainian refugees are prioritized over the host countries’ citizens (E-30). Ukrainian refugees threaten the host countries’ stability (E-30). RUSSIA: Sanctions hurt the West more than they hurt Russia (E-183). WEST/US: The West and the US are weak and will collapse (E-42). Military support to Ukraine exhausts the West (E-34).

Global South: RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: The conflict risks to spread beyond Ukraine (GS-38). UKRAINE: Ukraine’s demands are too high (GS-55). Ukraine is a corrupt state (GS-22). RUSSIA: Western media spread lies about Russia (GS-38). Ukrainian media spread lies about Russia (GS-28). WEST/US: The West has Ukraine fatigue (GS-104). The West provokes Putin into starting a nuclear war (GS-44). The West does not consider the opinion and interests of other countries (GS-28). NATO/US: NATO is directly and indirectly involved in the war (GS-59).

China: WEST/US: The West’s attitude to Ukraine, Ukrainian refugees in particular, is a blatant demonstration of white supremacy (C-49). The US and the West want to prolong the war and damage Russia (C-35). The US and the West smear China in Russia-Ukraine conflict (C-24). US: In the search of global dominance, the US creates security troubles which pose a threat to the world (C-53). EUROPE: Russia-Ukraine conflict causes contradictions and divisions within Europe (C-30). Europe has unsolved ethnic problems caused by European integration. It wants to reinforce its identity, and to defend its own civilization from Russia (C-22). NATO/US: Expansion of NATO undermines Europe’s security, as Russia may severely respond (C-34). NON-WESTERN WORLD (GLOBAL SOUTH): China is not a party to the Russia-Ukraine crisis; China and other eastern and southern major powers adhere to peace and talks (C-26). WORLD: The Russia-Ukraine crisis has accelerated the decline of US hegemony in the world; now, the world witnesses a global geopolitical shift from the Western to Eastern dominance (C-24).

Among the messages with excessive salience, the leaders are: The West/US benefits from the war (191: E-14, GS-145, C-32). Sanctions hurt the West more than they hurt Russia (E-183). NATO is weak, it cannot stop Russia (137: E-2, GS-135). Ukraine is losing the war (E-124). Sanctions against Russia are ineffective; Russia has adapted to them (113: E-55, GS-55, C-3). NATO provoked Russian aggression against Ukraine; the US and NATO ignored Russia’s need for security; NATO, led by the USA, moved eastward and threatened Russia, which was beneficial for the US (105: E-77, C-28). The West has Ukraine fatigue (GS-104). The reports on Russia’s war crimes are fake (102: E-27, GS-75). Ukraine is a Nazi country. It is ruled by Nazis who slaughter the innocent citizens of Donbas (86: E-40, GS-35, C-4). Ukrainian military are targeting civilians and committing other war crimes (83: E-77, GS-6). Russia succeeds on the battlefield, and it will win the war (83: E-28, GS-55). The West and the US use Ukraine as a tool in their proxy war against Russia (77: E-52, C-25). The US, the West and NATO are responsible for the war in Ukraine (71: E-33, C-38).

Our findings demonstrate the workings of the narrative strategy of suppression (deterioration of the referent’s status) in the ‘portraits’ of the Russia-Ukraine war per se, and of Ukraine, the West, the US, Europe and NATO. The narrative strategy of destruction (damaging the referent’s image) dominates in depicting Ukraine. The narrative strategy of direction (steering the referent to the required behaviour) gets traction in the images of Ukraine, Europe and the Global South, who are expected to be ‘reasonable’ and reconcile with Russia’s political and military ambitions.

Concluding Discussion

The image of Ukraine, which has won recognition in the world for its stoic fight against Russia’s military assault on its sovereignty, turns out to be divided, or split, in the global imagination, including within the EU. This split, much less obvious (though present) in Ukraine, is typical of world public opinion which has become a ‘battlefield of the narratives’. One side defends and promotes Ukraine’s positive image as a worthy member of the European democratic community, while the other side advances narratives which doubt Ukraine’s political and military potentials, or do their best to overtly or covertly downgrade the country’s role as an international actor. Therefore, as the public opinion surveys show, the world—and the EU within it—has two major contrastive ‘stories’ about Ukraine. We argue that the existence of these ‘storylines’ is caused by differences in the opinions of knowledge-producers (societal elites), and by the workings of Russian and pro-Russian propaganda, spreading its media narratives worldwide and targeting external opinion-formers and the general public in different geographical regions. The large-scale studies discussed above provided empirical evidence of the conflict of narratives and, specifically, how both Western (including the EU) and non-Western audiences may be susceptible to pro-Kremlin narratives.

There are several ‘takeaways’ for the EU. The first one follows from our insights into global public opinion on Ukraine and the war against Ukraine. They seem to highlight a shared attitude in the cross-Atlantic public sphere. This suggests the EU should continue investing into the like-minded, people-to-people dialogue between the EU and the US, building on common outlooks. This is particularly important in the face of an emerging and deepening ‘narrative split’ with the non-Western public which is prominently highlighted by the war against Ukraine.

The second ‘takeaway’ for the EU is the emerging divergence in narratives across different member states, as demonstrated by both their knowledge-producers and general public. Plural, democratic Europe will always have a range of narratives and opinions on any important local, regional or geopolitical issue. Yet, in our case, the narratives are not benign stories, but powerful devices in a critical situation where the stakes are high. On the one hand, the existence of the member state-specific ‘information bubbles’ of how to interpret the war undermines the effectiveness of the pan-EU public sphere in the deliberation of the war in general. On the other hand, disunity—or an open clash—in narratives justifying the action/inaction of the EU as a sui generis body in the context of the largest continental war since World War II may arguably lead to major policy- and decision-making gridlocks in the Union. It is in this context that we formulated our own empirical study objective, to examine the workings of pro-Kremlin narratives of the Russia-Ukraine war in their antagonistic intent.

The comparative design of our study was helpful to achieve our objective: to reveal the similarities and differences in the media narratives in the post-Communist European countries (including the EU member states), in the countries of the Global South, and in China—geopolitical locations historically targeted by Soviet/Russian information flows—and to assess their projection potentials, thus going beyond ‘what’ is said and looking at ‘how’ and ‘why’ it is said (see the works by Wagnsson and her colleagues for the formulation of these questions: Deverell et al. 2020; Wagnsson and Lundström 2022; Hoyle et al. 2023). In this chapter, we offer a novel algorithm to assess these strategic communication facets. We measure the ‘how’ aspect of the narrative’s efficiency by assessing the multiple iterations of its key messages. We assess the ‘why’ aspect through the narrative’s contextualization, so ‘anchoring’ it in the economic, political, social, cultural and historical settings inherent for the targeted audience. Of special importance are “historical distances” (in the classification by Braudel (1958)), which can be short-, mid- and long-term, and which facilitate appropriation of the narrative by the audience.

As our research demonstrates, some of European media narratives parallel the Global South and Chinese data segments, by communicating the West (or the West and the US) as being the invariably prominent political ‘actor’ of the Russia-Ukraine war. The immediate participants of the war—Ukraine and Russia—are the focus of the European and the Global South data, but are only shadows in the Chinese data. For China, as well as for the Global South, the information pivot is NATO headed by the US. The other highlights for China are the US and Europe. The salience of political ‘actors’ points to the narrators’ political priorities. The latter are also evident in the ‘stories’ about these actors.

The third ‘takeaway’ for the EU is the discovery of pro-Kremlin antagonistic narratives already in circulation in the EU member states’ media. This ‘story’, projected through the media, remains the same worldwide, featuring: the Ukrainian Nazis who wage war with their own citizens; the West and the US who benefit from this war; and Russia that has not been injured by Western sanctions. The narratives spread in Europe and the Global South foreground the topics of the fake reports about Russia’s war crimes, and the reality of such crimes committed by the Ukrainian military. The other foregrounded messages are those of NATO’s weakness and Russia’s invincibility. In the narratives shared by the post-Communist Europe and China, the major messages place the responsibility for the war on NATO/the US/the West, who, in pursuit of their geopolitical goals, have unleashed and are waging the war against Russia, endangering Europe and using Ukraine as a tool. The Global South and China narratives accentuate the vicious role of NATO, which moved eastward and threatened Russia, and which employs Ukraine’s pro-Western regime as a puppet. Therefore, this story argues, the non-Western world should support Russia.

The fifth ‘takeaway’ for the EU is the accents that define the contiguous media narratives of Ukraine and the war against Ukraine and the resulting antagonistic narrative strategies projected onto public spheres in individual EU member states. In the European data segment, the narrative destructs Ukraine’s image: Ukraine, with its corrupt and incompetent leaders, is losing the war; Ukraine’s refugees pose a threat for Europe and the West; the West may collapse, being exhausted by the military support of Ukraine. In comparison, the narratives of the Global South underscore the idea that the West has Ukraine fatigue, since Ukraine, a corrupt state, has very high demands. As to Russia, it is slandered by Ukrainian and Western media. In this narrative, the conflict may spread beyond Ukraine and end in a nuclear disaster provoked by NATO and the West as being the war participants who neglect the opinion of other countries. Chinese narratives shift the focus of attention to the Western world and the US, accusing them of white supremacy and world hegemony, which cause contradictions in Europe and entail military conflicts that threaten the world. The conflict in Ukraine, caused by the eastward expansion of NATO, intends to damage Russia, a Chinese partner, and to maintain the West’s hegemony in the world. In this narrative, the West’s hegemony is in decline, and the world is waiting for a geopolitical shift to the dominance of the Global South.

The sixth, and final ‘takeaway’ for the EU, is the strong historical ‘pedigree’ which is typical of the narratives informed by the antagonistic strategies that ultimately shape an anti-Western (with the EU as a part of the ‘West’) message. These ‘storylines’, that are to be entrenched in the audiences’ minds through their multiple iterations, are amplified emotionally (the threat of Ukrainian refugees for Europe, and the threat of military escalation beyond Ukraine for the Global South) and contextualized historically (with references to the short-, mid- and long history of the world). The short history associates the former Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was a part, as being a ‘protector’ of the ‘socialist states’ (among them were the countries considered in our research), which ‘helped the developing countries’ (the countries of the Global South at present). The short history also brings to the surface the bi-polar world with the Cold War confrontation between NATO (headed by the US), and the Warsaw Pact (headed by the Soviet Union). The mid history sends us back to the years of World War II, when the ‘invincible Soviet army’ (with the Russian army being its successor) stood up for what is right, and ‘saved the world from Nazis’. The long history is that of colonialism, with the ideas of ‘white supremacy’ and ‘global hegemony’ of its survivors. History may have buried the events, but the memory of them remains alive and resonates with the present-day narratives, making them inviting for the public. We echo Pivtorak et al. (2023) in their conclusions that this mix of narratives from different historical distances arguably creates a “favourable environment for pro-Russian messages to spread in local media” while accusing Ukraine of “being unwilling to negotiate with Putin and agree to his demands”. Russia’s messaging about its “anti-NATO” and “anti-American” stance “successfully build upon existing narratives and resonate within local media environments” (Pivtorak et al. 2023). The main takeaway from such narratives is the following assumption: “By this logic, providing military assistance to Ukraine would only escalate the conflict rather than bring about a peaceful resolution” (Pivtorak et al. 2023). Relevant literature argues that the narratives do not only help to map understanding and diagnose the difficult political situation, but also serve as a guide to future actions in similar situations. Pivtorak et al. (2023) report that Latin American countries, when asked to supply Kyiv with weapons previously purchased from Russia, “categorically refused” to do it, even though they were offered the latest, more advanced weapons.

The anti-Western theme that frames global media narratives in the Global South and China, from the short-, middle- and long-term historical perspectives, seems to lead to the creation of a specific, reductionist vision of the war in Ukraine as a battle-ground of the two superpowers of the twenty-first century—the US and Russia. This narrative came at the expense of an alternative narrative—Ukraine as an actor and agent fighting for its freedom, values and sovereignty; opposing its former colonizer; and becoming a candidate state to enter the EU. For Ukraine, this means that it has to successfully counter Russia in the ‘narrative battle’ for the minds of the world’s public. This implies that Ukraine’s strategic communications sector and diplomats will need to make significant efforts to shift perspectives on Ukraine (Pivtorak et al. 2023). The six ‘takeaways’ we list here for the EU also imply that if the EU (and its member states) is committed to “becoming a geopolitical actor, taking on the enactment of the new goals, powers and means” (Knodt and Wiesner, in this volume), the EU’s strategic communicators must continue with regular and comprehensive monitoring and assessment of the flows of antagonistic narratives. This should be followed by counter-measures developed together with experts, knowledge-producers, civil society and the general public in the EU states. We consider our study to be a modest contribution to this effort.