Semiotic Methodology of Research Construction of Anti-image of Russia (on the Example of Special Military Operation in Ukraine)

The purpose of the research. The article presents the results of a semiotic analysis of the Western media’s construction of an anti-image of Russia during the special military operation in Ukraine. The authors consider the issue of imagery as a significant aspect of the modern information war against Russia, which is presented as a “war of images” – a form of mental struggle expressed in the confrontation of meanings, narratives, discourses, and identities in the pursuit of information dominance and the definition of various variations in the construction of social reality. The conclusions of the research. The paper reveals the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic aspects of image construction in the context of information warfare (using the example of the special military operation in Ukraine), clearly demonstrating the elementary content units of narratives, the relationships between subjects, and their wilensological strategies. It is important to note that the obtained results can be used as a methodological tool for countering in modern information warfare.