Thread by @EU_ISS

The #Kremlin is waging #InformationWar 2.0. The EUISS tracked key narratives promoted by 🇷🇺 to understand the trends of the official communication from October 2021, when Russian military buildup intensified along the 🇺🇦 border, until June 2022.

Thread👇

@EUvsDisinfo

We identified key terms and tracked their occurrence on the English-language Twitter account of the Russian Foreign Ministry. We included synonyms & words used in the same context. E.g. 'Kyiv regime' is assimilated to #Ukraine & 'denazify' and 'demilitarise' are grouped.

'NATO' was trending in the Russian discourse before February 2022, 'demilitarisation' and 'denazification' started to become more prevalent with the start of the war and ended up overtaking #NATO.

Demilitarisation and denazification were announced as official objectives of the war on day one.

At the same time, NATO mentions didn't disappear. They were substituted by a terminology reminiscent of the Cold War: the collective West. As divisions between 🇷🇺 & the West appear to grow, so do the mentions of the collective West by the Kremlin in an attempt at othering.

The Kremlin also used more audacious narratives by claiming the presence of chemical and biological weapons and laboratories in 🇺🇦. Russian military alleged to target these sites which it falsely described as part of a secretly US-sponsored project.

As the narrative failed to gather much traction, official channels soon stopped pushing it. However, it is too early to say for certain that 🇷🇺 fully gave up on it.

Another keyword we analysed was ‘humanitarian’. Since 24 February, the humanitarian costs of the war were widely talked about; and the Kremlin did not lag behind.

Yet, the 🇷🇺 government used the term differently. It portrayed itself as a provider of aid to civilians in need. No mention of the fact that #Russia is the reason for the humanitarian catastrophe in the first place.

When ranking these keywords per month, these shifts in #Russian narratives become clearer.