My war is your special operation: Engagement with pro- and anti-regime framing of the war in Ukraine on Russian social media

On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, which since then has been consistently referred to by the Russian authorities as a special operation and not war. The purpose of this specific framing of the Russian aggression can be attributed to multiple reasons, but among the main advantages it provides to the Kremlin is the emphasis on power inequality between Russia and Ukraine as well as minimizing the concerns of the Russian population about the impact of the war on their lives. However, despite all the Kremlin’s propaganda and censorship efforts, it is still unclear what the dominant framing of the war is among Russian internet users and how they engage with different frames used in relation to it. To address this gap, the authors conducted an automated analysis of over 6 million public posts from VK, the biggest Russian social media platform, published between 14 February 2022 and 24 June 2022, and related to different ways of framing the war as well as the ways users engage with these frames. Their analysis reveals that the invasion was predominantly discussed in connection with the losses in the Russian army, and allusions to WW2 were also common. The users who posted about the war were older than average VK users and tuned in to pro-regime and pro-war content more frequently. Notably, after the enactment of the law criminalizing the usage of the term ‘war’, most users either remained consistent in their terminology or exited the discourse, with very few transitioning to using ‘special operation’ instead.