“The devil that takes any form”: geopolitics of gendered and sexualized enmity in Russia’s wartime news media

This study analyses the construction of geopolitical imaginaries using gendered and sexualized enemy images in Russian news media during the first 2 years of full-scale war against Ukraine. It demonstrates that such enmities are used to transpose high-level narratives of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and decoupling with the West onto familiar frameworks of the mundane everyday. A systematic qualitative content analysis of more than 200 news articles published in three major outlets from 2022 to 2023 identifies three framings: i) envisaging the morally degraded West and Ukraine, ii) rationalizing wartime isolation and understanding contested spaces, and iii) constructing wartime morality in Russia. Gender and sexual minorities (GSM) are depicted as morally objectionable threats to civil rights, public order, civilizational continuity, and universal moral truth. GSM enmity is used to construct imaginaries that present the West as immoral and impractical, Ukraine as a hostile vassal, and Russia as a benevolent traditionalist power. Results contribute to scholarship on gender and sexuality in geopolitics and narratives justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine and the translation of those narratives to domestic mass audiences through news media and entertainment, extending geopolitical conflict into everyday life.