Military operation, war or invasion: the first Russian actions in Ukraine in 2022 according to the coverage of the media group in Brazil and Portugal

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show which discursive formations, as defined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his work The Archeology of Knowledge (1969), were present in Brazilian and Portuguese printed journalism regarding Russia's military action unleashed on Ukrainian territory in February 24, 2022. This concept will also be discussed in light of the redefinitions of Michel Pêcheux, a French theorist of Discourse Analysis, who gave new contours to the Foucauldian notion. We analyzed 16 newspaper covers (eight Brazilian and eight Portuguese) published the day after the beginning of the Russian actions in Ukraine. Our reading observes the support of Portuguese media outlets for the Ukrainian cause and the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin as responsible for the outbreak of the conflict; In the Brazilian case, the discursive formation around the war is very present, but Putin is part of a discursive formation that is different from that operated in Portugal.