1 Introduction: Russian Media and the War in Ukraine 1 Julie Fedor This collection of articles focuses on the Russian information war campaign that has accompanied and fueled the war in Ukraine. Of course, neither side has a monopoly on the use of propaganda and disinformation, and the latter are always present in any war. 2 But we have chosen to focus here on the Russian state media machine, as a phenomenon that not only looms especially large over the events of the past year but is also bound to continue to play a major role in shaping future developments in the region and beyond. Although the Russian government continues to deny its involvement in the war, Russian media have effectively been on a war footing since the spring 0f 2014. Consequently we have seen an extraordinary proliferation of “enemy images” of various kinds and in various genres, from lurid tabloid TV “documentary” films 1 The research for this introductory essay was supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Research Awards (DECRA) funding scheme (project DE150100838). The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council. 2 On Ukrainian information warfare, see Andreas Umland, “Lozh’ ne pomozhet ni Kievu, ni Moskve”, Novoe vremia, 27 January 2015, http://nv.ua/opinion/um land/lozh-ne-pomozhet-ni-rossii-ni-ukraine-31315.html; Marta Dyczok, “Mass Media Framing, Representations, and Impact on Public Opinion” in Ukraine’s Euromaidan: Analyses of a Civil Revolution, eds. David R. Marples and Frederick V. Mills (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2015), 77-94; Joanna Szostek, “The Media Battles of Ukraine’s EuroMaidan”, Digital Icons 11 (2014), http://www.digital icons.org/issue11/joanna-szostek/; and “Ukraine’s Media War: Battle of the Memes”, The Economist, 12 March 2015, http://www.economist.com/news/ europe/21646280-russia-has-shown-its-mastery-propaganda-war-ukraine-stru ggling-catch-up-battle-web?zid=307&ah=5e80419d1bc9821ebe173f4f0f060a07. All URLs cited in this introduction were last accessed on 7 April 2015.