Describing the “Other” in Conflict: Evidence from Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

• In Event: Development and Conflict in the Era of American Withdrawal

Abstract

How do combatants and their supporters characterize their adversaries in modern armed conflict? Groups engaged in conflict can describe their opponents in many different ways. On the one hand, they can use dehumanizing and hateful terms for the “Other.” On the other hand, they can use more neutral terms to describe their adversary. This issue is important since language can have important consequences in war, with dehumanization having a particularly blood-spattered history and being associated with the execution of some of the worst atrocities and violence in the history of conflict (e.g., Landry, Orr, and Mere 2022, Yanagizawa-Drott 2014, Adena et al 2015). Yet, there has been relatively little systematic research investigating how opponents are described in modern conflict. Using a dataset of over one million scraped posts from Russian-language war Telegram, this study measures five different ways in which Russian Telegram channels refer to Ukraine and Ukrainians – with dehumanizing language (as animals), negative ideological language (as Nazis etc.), negative ethnic language (e.g., “khokhols”), general adversarial terms (e.g., “enemy”), or neutral descriptors (e.g., “Ukrainians”) – over time.

Key preliminary findings from our analysis are that: (1) the use of negative ideological terms such as Nazis on Russian Telegram has been substantial but peaked toward the beginning of the conflict, (2) there has been a non-trivial amount of dehumanizing language by Russian Telegram channels, particularly by certain noted propagandistic figures, and (3) overall there has been a growing trend of referring to the Ukrainian opponent with more neutral and general adversarial terms over time. These findings suggest that dehumanization and ideological demonization remain critical dangers in modern wartime discourse, but that the realities and imperatives of protracted conflict may push toward the use of more neutral descriptions of the Other over time. We also explore the relationship between descriptions of the opponent and key wartime events, and find mixed evidence suggesting that bloody and high-stakes battles during the war such as the struggle for Mariupol are associated with more dehumanizing and hateful language toward the adversary.

Authors

• Daniel Silverman, Carnegie Mellon University

• Anna O. Pechenkina, Utah State University

• Austin Knuppe, Utah State University