Description
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24th 2022, Ukraine has undertaken a purposive branding process in order to garner support from its potential global allies. This project has served as a way to communicate with foreign public audiences, to disseminate a wartime narrative against the Russian Federation. Whereas older narratives regarding Ukrainian identity were dominated by external actors, with Ukraine as a ‘post-Soviet’ country, this has since shifted after the 2022 invasion. A new self-created narrative (a brave and unified Ukraine) has been successfully constructed through programmes such as the 'Be Brave Like Ukraine' campaign, alongside a wide range of cultural initiatives across the globe. Particularly, new modes of communication, such as videos, photos, memes, and graphic elements, have been actively used in Ukraine’s wartime branding strategy.
Drawing on the respective backgrounds of the researchers, namely nationalism and public-diplomacy, this paper aims to analyse visual modes of communication in Ukrainian branding campaigns, as public diplomacy in the digital age has transformed and embraced more creative ways of communication. Of particular note, has been Ukraine’s ability to transform the image of some of the more extreme nationalist elements that emerged after the initial 2014 War in Donbas, effectively rebranding groups such as the 12th Special Operations Brigade or ‘Azov Battalion’. The Ukrainian government attempting to purge extreme far-right elements, and removing some of the more divisive symbols from their attire. This tension, between nation-branding and nationalism in Ukrainian image projection, is an area of study that our research will also address.
