Wartime Digital Diplomacy: Example Of Ukraine-Russia War

Communication technologies have brought a new dimension to the relations of governments with international society. Today, states carry out their activities for target audiences through social media platforms in order to persuade societies in line with their strategic goals, and the message transfer process can be carried out instantly. Twitter based diplomatic activities are of great importance in terms of gaining international public support. In this study, the use of digital diplomacy in the process of the Russian-Ukrainian War is discussed. The communication strategies followed by Russia and Ukraine in the social media within the scope of the digital diplomacy activities carried out to gain the support of the international public was examined through the Twitter accounts of the Ankara Embassies of the two countries selected as a sample. The findings of the study, which covers the first two weeks of the war and was carried out using the content analysis method, reveal that the Ukrainian and Russian Embassies regularly convey the developments related to the war to the Turkish public in line with their thesis, and the Ukrainian Embassy stands out much more in terms of both the level of interaction and the number of posts.