Conceptualization of Russia’s Strategic Narratives in the Full-Scale Russo-Ukrainian War

Russia’s strategic communication in the 2022’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has relied on specific strategic narratives as well as features of strategic culture. And while there are several publications on both strategic narratives and strategic culture of Russia, these two compatible concepts are not always integrated for effective strategic communication analysis. And as argued in this study, there is also a lack of more generalized and structured outline of Russia’s strategic narratives. The objective of this research is to provide comprehensive conceptualization of Russia’s strategic narratives in the full-scale Russo-Ukrainian war by bridging strategic narratives with strategic culture concept and by critical synthesis of the existing theoretical knowledge. Firstly, the study provides critical review of the relevant scholarly literature on the Russian strategic narrative/culture in the context of the full-scale war. Consequently, perspectives of strategic narratives and strategic culture are aligned for the purposes of the research. Secondly, relying on a combination of inductive and deductive text analysis with thematic coding, theoretical synthesis is conducted. Findings indicate that Russia’s strategic narratives are divided into the two general categories: “great power” narrative and “external threat, versus West” narrative. Both strategic narratives include three levels of sub-narratives and serve as a base for Russia’s strategic communication in the war.