War rhetoric of violence in Russo-Ukrainian conflict

Abstract

The topic of the article are the media reports from the Russo-Ukrainian war, focused on the issue of the violence. Violence could be the act of communication, used to dominate the victims, as a ritual integrating community and the act of self-presentation of the aggressor. Rhetoric of violence refers to a certain way to describe the acts of violence, to utterances accompanying violence or being violence, instigating to it or legitimizing it. After discussing the concept, the war rhetoric of violence in the Russo-Ukrainian war is described in the article, in its linguistic dimension and content (analysis cover headlines of the publications, terms used to name the aggressors and their actions, elements stressing their brutality, mass character of violence, its systemic nature and support given by some citizens of the Russian Federation). Following the idea of rhetoric of violence’s legitimization, the author proposes the term rhetoric of violence’s de-legitimization, including 1. the rhetoric of brutality, 2. the rhetoric of breaking the civilizational rules, 3. the rhetoric of mass and systemic nature and common support, 4. the rhetoric of senseless violence. The conclusion of the article is that this rhetoric might affect the image of the Russian Federation, its soldiers and citizens, and lead to excluding them from the community of civilized countries and societies, at the same time empowering the support for Ukrainian victims and their struggle, being the effective defensive weapon in Russo-Ukrainian war.