Vladimir Putin's Framing of the Russo-Ukrainian War : Exploration of the "Clash of Civilizations" Concept in Putin’s Annexation Speech

Abstract: The Russian invasion of Ukraine has catalyzed a battle of perspectives and different framings of theconflict between both parties involved. The central figure of the framing on the Russian side hasbeen Vladimir Putin who through his discourse attempted to justify his war efforts by framing theinvasion as a civilizational conflict. Even though, there has been a growing body of literature that hasanalyzed the civilizational shift in discourse of Vladimir Putin. There has not been much theoreticalengagement with the “clash of civilizations” thesis outlined by Samuel P. Huntington (1993). Existing research on this topic remains limited due to the fact that the events covered in this thesis happenedlast year. This paper aims to fill gaps in existing research by analyzing Putin's Annexation Speech delivered on September 30, 2022, during the signing of treaties annexing four Ukrainian regions tothe Russian Federation. Employing Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional model (1989;1992;2010), this study provides a comprehensive analysis of Putin's Annexation Speech to ascertain theextent to which Putin utilized the "clash of civilizations". The main thesis of this paper is that Vladimir Putin largely built on the “clash of civilizations” concept in his speech to frame the conflict in aspecific way. Additionally, it is argued that the utilization of this rhetoric is likely to influence theconflict and preserve it at its current scale in the foreseeable future.