Nazism, Genocide and the Threat of The Global West. Russian Moral Justification of War in Ukraine

Abstract

A few public actions prepared the way for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the purpose of which was to define a special military operation as forced, necessary and inevitable. The use of armed force against Ukraine was discussed during those public events. The Russian authorities applied many arguments, and a great deal of attention was paid to the moral justification of war. In this article, I consistently analyze three problems: why did Russian officials use moral language to justify the war, what arguments did they use, and would these arguments retain their effect in the long term. I will examine several addresses made by the President of Russia and the Russian Federation Security Council meeting materials to address these questions. I conclude that Putin's lack of legitimacy forced him to justify the war in moral terms, and the peculiarities of Russian moral discourse allowed him to do that. However, even if this strategy was effective to a certain extent at the beginning of the war, it can hardly be stable and sustainable. Keywords: invasion of Ukraine, Russia, Ukraine, just war, morality

Analyzing Digital Propaganda and Conflict Rhetoric: A Study on Russia’s Bot-Driven Campaigns and Counter-Narratives during the Ukraine Crisis

“…This theory was applied and utilized to understand the moral reasoning of political narratives and public opinion. For instance, this theory helps to understand the moral reasoning behind major political movements and policy decisions, emphasizing how different groups may prioritize certain moral values over others [23]. Application of the theory in a study on attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine reveals that liberals and conservatives expressed different sets of moral values in their discourse [21].…”

“…While moral realism hasn't been directly applied to analyzing information warfare discourse, the COVID-19 case study shows the impact of understanding moral reasoning on political narratives [23]. Moral realism, in the context of information warfare for this conflict, provides a way to analyze the moral justifications and narratives used by Russia and Ukraine.…”