From headlines to pipelines: Unpacking the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict through sentiment and topics

• Topic modeling uncovers 12 Russia-related topics covered in The Wall Street Journal . • Topics differ in their sentiment (polarity) and hype (intensity of discussions). • Sentiments and hypes on Global Economy and Oil are related to bullish oil returns. This study examines the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on oil markets by analyzing the sentiment and intensity of Russia-related discussions in business media. Using topic modeling, we identify 12 distinct topics of articles published in The Wall Street Journal during the 2014–2024 period and compute their sentiment and hype scores. The sentiment and hype of these topics exhibit varying relations with oil returns under different market conditions. Notably, the Global Economy and Oil topics show the strongest positive association with oil returns in both sentiment and hype, particularly during bullish oil markets.