Character Assassination Practices in Reputation Management in Wartime in Ukraine in Social Media (the Alexey Arestovich Case)

The article was written during wartime, when an important role in the information component of hybrid warfare is played by effective communication among actors involved in social practices of character assassination.The aim of this study is to describe and classify the methods and features of reputational destruction as a socio-cultural phenomenon within Ukrainian discourse during wartime. The objective is to identify the socio-cultural dynamics of societal development involved in the interaction between identity and power within Ukrainian society, from the beginning of the full-scale war in 2022 to 2025.The article analyses the messages of the opinion leader, whose reputation is being studied, within the framework of CARP Research Lab and S. Samoilenko’s research. The research objective is to describe and classify the examples of attacks on a famous person that destroy his reputation through the techniques of character assassination. For analysis, the social network accounts of O. Arestovych, from January 2023 to February 2025, were chosen.According to the results, the author suggests that the reputation of a famous person, who was in the pro-governmental group and then left it, on the contrary, is built on the desire to interest the audience and requires ambiguous statements, provocations, and emotionally colored vocabulary. The results obtained illustrate examples of the destruction of reputation as a social practice in wartime. At the micro-sociological level, this phenomenon is analyzed through the behavior of opinion leaders who influence specific social groups within society and shape the socio-political information landscape. At the macro-sociological level, such practices are viewed as part of the broader process of understanding Ukrainian identity during wartime, reflecting collective behavior that impacts social groups and the transformative processes characteristic of society in times of war.