Digital battleground: An examination of anti-refugee discourse on Twitter against Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. In this case study, we investigate the prevalence and types of anti-refugee discourse about Ukrainian refugees on Twitter. Previous studies primarily focused on public discourse and attitudes toward racialized refugees and immigrants; the Ukrainian refugee crisis is unique in that it is one of the few instances of a recent refugee crisis involving people who do not come from mostly racialized communities. Using Communalytic, a computational social science tool for studying public discourse on social media, we automatically collected and identified toxic posts mentioning Ukrainian refugees during the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We focused on posts containing toxic language, as this is where we are most likely to find examples of anti-refugee sentiments. Based on a manual analysis of 2,045 toxic posts referencing Ukrainian refugees, the most prevalent ones were politically motivated and included partisan content (33 percent), followed by posts containing expressions countering anti-refugee narratives (20 percent). These findings highlight the escalating politicization and polarization of discussions about Ukrainian refugees both online and offline. Furthermore, 53 percent of the sample aligned with pro-Kremlin narratives against Ukraine. By exploiting anti-refugee sentiments and leveraging existing political and cultural fault lines in the West, pro-Kremlin messages on Twitter contribute to diminishing support for Ukrainian refugees, minimizing the severity of the war, and undermining international support for Ukraine.