A Scathing Indictment: How European Opinion Leaders Framed Putin’s Aggression Against Ukraine
Journal: Journalism and Media
Year: 2025

Putin’s Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and launched a massive invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This study is predicated on framing theory, which posits that the media contribute to the creation of individuals’ perceived reality. We analyzed how the European press presented Russian President Vladimir Putin during both episodes. Content analysis was used to examine a sample of 1009 opinion articles and editorials published in two leading newspapers in each of the five largest European ec