Narrative Analysis of War Crimes in Ukraine - Part 1
Ripple Research dives into the narrative analysis behind war crimes taking place in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, uncovering competing narratives and dissecting disinformation campaigns.
Image credit: Getty Images
Contents
Section 1: Analysis of online conversation volume related to war crimes in Ukraine
Section 2: Uncovering competing narratives
Section 1: Analysis of online conversation volume related to war crimes in Ukraine
Most online conversations around war crimes in Ukraine are concentrated in North America and in Europe.
For this study, we have leveraged our open source intelligence capabilities at Ripple Research to curate a custom-built dataset comprising 3.6+ million public, online posts from various digital and social media sources in over 200 countries and regions around the world.
Total posts: 3.62 million
Unique authors: 557,180
Total impressions: 42.0 billion
As can be seen in the animation above, the US and a few countries in Europe dominate most of the online conversations around war crimes committed in Ukraine. As the conflict unfolds, other countries join in.
The Ukraine crisis has generated a disproportionately high volume of conversations and has grabbed almost all the online attention over other ongoing conflicts.
Current civilian causalities in Ukraine are estimated to be around 1,800 according to the latest UN report from April 10th. Other ongoing conflicts that have reported higher casualty numbers, such as Tigray, for example, where experts estimate at least 500,000 deaths, have seen their share of online voice decline as the Ukrainian conflict grew.
War crimes have been a key topic since the very start of the conflict in Ukraine.
In the exhibit below, we can observe the evolution of the narratives around the topic of war crimes and the key events that have driven conversation volume.
Key takeaways:
War crimes have been a key topic of discussion since almost the start of the war and remain prominent through the course of the conflict.
The online conversation volume tracks key events of the conflict timeline quite well.
The graphic images of civilian casualties from Bucha and elsewhere have triggered a massive spike in online conversations and sentiment.
Specific mentions of accountability processes such as the ICC and the UN HRC are relatively low however, and more needs to be done to promote awareness of them.
The majority of the conversations and posts related to the ICC and HRC are clustered around the last week of February and the first week of March.
In the exhibit above we have isolated online posts with mentions of the ICC, the Human Rights Council and those that mention other prosecutors. As can be seen in the timeline, there are some clear spikes driven mainly by:
The ICC announcement to open an investigation,
President Zelenskyy welcomed the establishment of the International Commission of Inquiry by the UN HRC, and
Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s announcement that the US plans to seek the suspension of Russia from the UN HRC.
Section 2: Uncovering competing narratives
Top of mind awareness
The exhibit below shows key narratives that are currently “top of mind” in the global consciousness.
Key takeaways:
As expected, most of the current top-of-mind narratives revolve around Bucha and Mariupol (as of Apr 6th).
However, there are other narratives within the Ukrainian context (and calls to action) that are becoming increasingly prominent (and persistent) including various narratives surrounding the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia as well as the Syrian conflict.
Ethiopian narratives include: #tigray and #500daysTigrayGenocide.
Other narratives that have lost their early popularity include calls for closing the Ukrainian airspace and boycotting Coca-Cola.
Finally, #MarioDraghi has also become a trending topic because of the tweet below:
Top of mind organizations
Top of mind people
Perceptions around ICC and UN HRC
In the exhibit below we have filtered our dataset to include associations and sub-narratives around ICC and UN HRC.
Key takeaways for ICC related conversations:
Perception 1: Tigray Neglect:
ICC conversations in the Ukrainian context still have strong associations with the war in Tigray and minor references to Gaza and #freePalestine.
Perception 2: American Hypocrisy.
There is a comparison of Russia’s war crimes and those of Israel.
Further calls to investigate Trump’s activities.
US’ hypocrisy during Afghanistan war crimes investigation. “US froze the assets of the judges, investigation was dropped.”
Key takeaways for UN HRC related conversations:
UN HRC mentions also refer to Gaza but do not reference the Ethiopian/Tigray conflict.
#Demvoice1 and #Bluevoices feature in the UN HRC mentions as well as in the general dataset and in the top of mind narratives in the previous section. Both of these relate to internal US politics and their domestic agenda. These narratives are co-opting the Ukrainian conversation to further their internal political agenda.
Read on for Part 2.
Take a look at our previous post that covers how Russian and Ukrainian support spread through social media networks during the first two weeks of the war.
To learn more about our mission at Ripple Research and for details of our capabilities, click here.
Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
For further information and requests, contact us.