The diploma thesis deals with medial images of selected events of the Ukraine War and their comparison in selected Ukrainian, Russian and Czech media. The aim of the diploma thesis is to identify, describe and compare medial images of key events of the Ukraine War in selected intelligence portals with various political orientation. The assumption is that there probably exist alternatives in opinion of the official Russian position in the frame of the Ukrainian and Czech media discourse. The first part of the thesis deals with theoretical concepts that are connected with propaganda and state-organised communication, and specifies the differences among them. Furthermore, a design of the research is introduced. The analytical part provides results and the content analysis detections in medial statements that were published in selected media between 20th February 2014 and 31st December 2014. The conclusion summarises the main detections of the research and their assets in the field of a propaganda survey.

The theory of mediatized war implies that any study of conflict that takes place in modern times must also consider the impact of the media within that conflict, especially including new media and communication technologies. Images as visual representations of war have become a part of the information warfare and used to create narratives rooted in the culture of media witnessing (Mortensen) but sometimes entirely divorced from reality (Baudrillard’s simulacrum). The purpose of this thesis was to study images from two Telegram channels, in order to analyze the visual representation of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022. A qualitative content analysis was used on the images, to observe and interpret the visual themes and context of the images. The theoretical framework that was applied to the categories were the theory of the visual, the culture of witnessing in war, and mediatization of war. The results indicate that both channels try to employ features of media witnessing, with a notable difference that the Russian channel presented a more sanitized, gore-less, and staged version of war while the Ukrainian one focused on the casualties and horrors of war. The study contributes to the fields of mediatization of war and visual representation of war by focusing on the previously unstudied material and combining this unique case with a broad theoretical and empirical body of knowledge.

This essay examines how two daily newspapers, the Swedish Dagens Nyheter and the Russian Izvestia retell and report on the Russian-Ukrainian war. The study is based on the theory of propaganda by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O`Donnell and the media system theory by Daniel C. Hallin and Paolo Mancini which is applied to fifty randomly selected articles from a six-week period. The purpose of this study is to see how further reporting differs between the two newspapers that operate in two different media systems and whether propaganda is visible in the newspapers reporting. The survey is carried out by studying how often Dagens Nyheter and Izvestia report on the Russian- Ukrainian war and if propaganda techniques are used in the published articles. Furthermore, the terms used to describe the war in the two newspapers are also examined.  The study is based on a quantitative content analysis where articles were collected over a six-week period as empirical material. The articles were coded in a code-scheme and the results are presented in three diagrams and one chart.The study resulted in marked differences between Dagens Nyheter and Izvestia`s reporting where propaganda is strongly prominent in the Russian newspapers Izvestia and non-existent in the Swedish Dagens Nyheter. Additional results that this study promotes are that the newspapers construct, report and describe the war in two completely different ways. / Denna studie undersöker hur två dagstidningar konstruerar och rapporterar om det Rysk-ukrainska kriget ur ett propagandateoretiskt perspektiv samt ur ett mediesystemteoretiskt perspektiv. Tidningarna som undersöks är den svenska tidningen Dagens Nyheter och den ryska tidningen Izvestia. Syftet med denna undersökning är att se hur vidare rapporteringen skiljer sig åt mellan de två tidningarna som verkar i två olika mediesystem samt om propaganda är synlig i de två tidningarnas rapportering. Undersökningen sker genom att studera hur ofta Dagens Nyheter respektive Izvestia rapporterar om det Rysk-ukrainska kriget samt om propagandatekniker används i de publicerade artiklarna. Vidare undersöks vilka termer som används för att beskriva kriget i de båda tidningarna.  Studien grundar sig i en kvantitativ innehållsanalys där artiklar samlats in under en sexveckorsperiod som empiriskt material. Artiklarna kodas i ett kodschema och resultatet presenteras i tre diagram och en tabell.Studien resulterade i markanta skillnader mellan Dagens Nyheters och Izvestias rapportering, där propaganda är starkt framträdande i den ryska tidningen Izvestia och obefintlig i Dagens Nyheter. Ytterligare resultat som studien visar är att tidningarna konstruerar, rapporterar och beskriver kriget på två skilda sätt.

Poland was erased from European political maps in 1795 and fought in vain for freedom for the next century, until World War I provided another chance for independence. On November 11, 1918, the creation of the Polish Republic was proclaimed, but in an atmosphere of uncertainty, particularly relative to frontiers. The border with Germany was established in 1920-21 after plebiscites. While peaceful in Masuria, Ermland and Pomerania, there were three violent uprisings of the ethnic Poles in Upper Silesia. The status of Gdansk as a Free City was confirmed at Versailles in 1919. The Southern border with Czechoslovakia was settled in 1920. The Eastern borders were established after a war with Ukraine and a conflict with Lithuania. The last and most exhausting war with Soviet Russia was ended by 1921s Riga Peace Treaty. Polands boundaries were finally recognized by the Conference of Ambassadors in March 1923.

This paper examines Russian broadcast media's disinformation strategies after the Ukraine invasion in 2022. In the past decade, Russian disinformation has been recognized by scholars and policymakers as a danger to European security and order. And it has made it harder for Europeans to access reliable and factual information. However, much research thus far has been conducted when the war in Ukraine was different in proportion, and where disinformation functioned as the foundation for small-scale military action. Now that the war has evolved, disinformation strategies have evolved with it.  In this paper, I applied Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to twenty articles from three internationally oriented Russian broadcasters: RT, Sputnik, and TASS. This revealed two major themes in disinformation narratives: positive Self-representation and negative Other-representation. I demonstrate in this research that Russian disinformation is no longer used to hide Russia’s direct involvement in Ukraine, but that it is used to present justifications for the invasion and further military actions.  Moreover, the research illustrates that the relationship between information warfare and conventional warfare is symbiotic and that contemporary disinformation strategies have been adjusted so that they can benefit from the current circumstances in Ukraine. Ultimately, in this research, I determine that Russian disinformation strategies have evolved since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and are now altered to align with the Kremlin’s aggressive military tactics.

This thesis investigates the portrayal of the Mariupol Theatre Airstrike withinthe Russo-Ukrainian War through a discourse analysis of news articles fromdiverse media outlets in Russia, Ukraine, France, Germany, the UK, and theUS. The study employs a qualitative comparative case study approach withinthe academic domain of targeting civilians in war. By applying the lenses oftraditionalist and revisionist perspectives within the theoretical framework ofJust War Theory, the research aims to understand how moral judgements aremanifested in the discourses presented by the media outlets reporting on theMariupol Theatre Airstrike. Notably, the findings reveal a dichotomy in media reporting: Russian mediaadopts a blend of traditionalist and revisionist positions, while Westernmedia also exhibits a blend of both positions, leaning more towards therevisionist perspective. By focusing on the specific case of the MariupolTheatre Airstrike, the study aims to provide a comprehensive analysis thatcontributes to the broader understanding of the complexities of media and theprovide a nuanced understanding on how moral judgments are being exhibited in the Russo-Ukrainian War.

This thesis explores how ontological security shapes Ukrainian memory politics in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Russian invasion's effect on ontological security. Despite their interdependence, ontological security and memory politics are seldomly studied together. Ukrainian memory politics, particularly in the post-Soviet era and after the implementation of the 2015 decommunization laws, have attracted European scholarly attention, as the Russo-Ukrainian (Memory) war has impacted Self and Identity on multiple levels. Furthermore, the thesis highlights the role of memory political measures in creating securitized unitary narratives, emphasizing the significance of memory for stability of Self. While unpopular at first, the decommunization laws emerged from the conflict and enhanced ontological security by solidifying a common Identity.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the security environment of Europe overnight. This study addresses how this affected the rhetoric regarding European identity and the threats to it, in the Finnish parliament insecurity related discussions. It does this by employing the three part framework of social identity used by Brewer and Herman in their bookabout European identity. The framework contains three aspects: the composition, the content and the in-group out-group perceptions of identity. It attempts to unearth these aspects of European identity, byemploying concepts such as nested identity and the division between ethnicand cultural identity. The study presents the results of qualitative contentanalysis with quantitative elements of Finnish parliamentary sessions fromthe Spring of 2022. The study concludes that European Identity is used inthe Finnish parliament to both increase Finnish sense of security whilebuilding solidarity with Ukraine. The nature of European identity isprimarily civil and the threats towards it are also conceived as civil threats,however with the caveats that all national/political identities are a mix ofethnic and civil elements. The study also concludes that both EU andEuropean identity matter, but that European identity is more universal.

This diploma thesis will basically work with the concept of security, namely, the European secu- rity in recent years. Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, and Russia is NATO's distant neighbour, in this thesis I will prove that we should connect the events on Ukrainian border with European security. From the very onset of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, NATO was firm in its support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders. The Allies immediately condemned the illegal "legitimate annexation" of the Crimea to Russia in March 2014 and they have repeatedly stated that they would never recognize it as well. They also condemned deliberate destabilization in eastern Ukraine which was provoked by Russia with the use of its military intervention and militants' support. The crisis in Ukraine has proved to be a real turning point in Euro-Atlantic security since some senior Western politicians began to speak about changes in the guideline of European defense policy. Ukrainian crisis created new security situation in Europe and still requires attention, in- volvement and response from NATO. This crisis sharpened strategic misunderstanding between Russia and the West. It shows very clearly that Moscow and the West understand European security in...

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 – most of the United Nations have, in one way or another, participated in the most significant war of many decades. The war is characterized by Russia’s atrocious war crimes, illegal annexations, terror, propaganda, and complete disrespect for international law. On the other hand, the war has also been characterized by Ukrainian resilience, a united Europe, and a new dimension of intelligence gathering through social media.Due to the internet, social media, the accessibility of mobile devices, and Ukraine’s military and civilianeffort in documenting Russian equipment – its whereabouts, status, and quantity, Open-Source Intelligence possibilities have reached new levels for both professionals and amateurs. Despite these improved possibilities, gathering such a vast amount of data is still a Herculean effort.Hence, this study contributes a starting point for anyone wanting to compile equipment losses by providing a process specialized in automatic data extraction and summarization from an existing database. The database in question is the image collection from the military analysis group Oryxspioenkop. To further complement the information provided by Oryxspioenkop, the method automatically extracts and annotates dates from the images to provide a chronological order of the equipment loss as well as a graphical overview.The process shows promising results and manages to compile a large set of data, both the information provided by Oryx and the extracted dates from its imagery. Further, the automated process proves to be many times faster than its manual counterpart, showing a linear relationship between the number of images analysed and manhours saved. However, due to the limited development time – the process still has room for improvement and should be considered semi-automatic, rather than automatic. Nevertheless, thanks to the open-source design, the process can be continuously updated and modified to work with other databases, images, or the extraction of other strings of text from imagery.With the rise of competent artificial image generation models, the study also raises the question if this kind of imagery will be a reliable source in the future when studying equipment losses, or if artificial intelligence will be used as a tool of propaganda and psychological operations in wars to come. / Sedan Rysslands oprovocerade invasion av Ukraina den 24e februari 2022 – har stora delar av de Förenta nationerna engagerat sig i århundradets mest signifikanta krig. Kriget har karaktäriserats av ryska krigsbrott, olagliga annekteringar, terror, propaganda samt en total avsaknad av respekt för folkrätt. I kontrast, har kriget även karaktäriserats av Ukrainas ovillkorliga motståndskraft, ett enat Europa och en ny dimension av underrättelseinhämtning från sociala medier.Genom internet, sociala medier, tillgängligheten av mobiltelefoner och Ukrainas militära och civila ansträngning att dokumentera rysk materiel – vart den befinner sig, vilken status den har samt vilken kvantitet den finns i, har öppen underrättelseinhämtning blomstrat på både professionell och amatörnivå. Dock, på grund av den kvantitet som denna data genereras i, kräver en helhetssammanställning en oerhörd insats.Därav avser detta arbete ge en grund för sammanställning av materielförluster genom att tillhandahålla en automatiserad process för att extrahera data från en befintlig databas. Detta har exemplifierats genom att nyttja bildkollektioner från Oryxspioenkop, en grupp bestående av militäranalytiker som fokuserar på sammanställning av grafiskt material. Utöver detta så kompletterar processen befintliga data genom att inkludera datumet då materielen dokumenterats. Därigenom ges även en kronologisk ordning för förlusterna.Processen visar lovande resultat och lyckas att effektivt och träffsäkert sammanställa stora mängder data. Vidare lyckas processen att överträffa sin manuella motsvarighet och visar på ett linjärt samband mellan antalet analyserade bilder och besparade mantimmar. Dock, på grund av den korta utvecklingstiden har processen fortfarande en del utvecklingsmöjlighet och förblir semiautomatisk, snarare än automatisk. Å andra sidan, eftersom processen bygger på öppen källkod, finns fortsatt möjlighet att uppdatera och modifiera processen för att passa annat källmaterial.Slutligen, i och med den kontinuerliga utvecklingen av artificiell intelligens och artificiellt genererade bilder,lyfter studien frågan om denna typ av data kommer vara en trovärdig källa i framtida analyser av materielförluster, eller om det kommer att förvandlas till verktyg för propaganda och påverkansoperationeri ett framtida krig.