In propaganda’s web by Novaya Gazeta Europe

Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine and what role does Russian propaganda play in this?

This was the central question of the data-driven project that analysed over 3 million articles by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The research focused on contextual paragraphs, known as “boilerplates”, that the Russian state media uses to frame world events in a specific light, namely by creating an image of Ukraine as the enemy.

By using data-based storytelling, we show how propaganda has been preparing Russians for the war since 2014 — and the methods it used to adapt to the changing reality.