Authors
Farah Awadalla1; 1 University of Manchester, UK Discussion
This paper examines how Russian and Ukrainian state-affiliated media strategically mobilise gendered humanitarian narratives in their international coverage of the Ukrainian refugee crisis. While existing scholarship recognises that war reporting is deeply gendered, less attention has been paid to how states deliberately deploy gendered discourses as foreign policy tools across both state and linguistic contexts. Focusing on state-affiliated English- and Arabic-language outputs (RT, TASS, Ukrinform, and Ukrania Bel’Arabiya) between 2022 and 2025, the paper traces how refugee displacement is framed not as a neutral humanitarian issue but as a contested site of geopolitical meaning-making.
Drawing on media content analysis and critical discourse analysis, the study shows that gender operates as both an emotional trigger and a political instrument in these narratives. In English, Russian outlets emphasise women’s vulnerability and children’s suffering to dramatise the failures of Western humanitarianism, appealing to Global South and anti-establishment Western audiences. In Arabic, the emphasis shifts to male absence, duty, and the collective burden of refugees, resonating with regional moral frameworks around sovereignty and obligation. Ukrainian media, by contrast, foregrounds female participation and resilience in its English coverage to project an image of democratic modernity and gender equality aligned with Euro-Atlantic values, while its Arabic-language outputs emphasise the emotive struggles of refugees and familial suffering, aligning Ukraine’s plight with displacement experiences familiar to MENA publics.
By comparing these divergent framings of the refugee crisis across both states and linguistic spheres, the paper argues that gendered humanitarianism functions as a site of “competing universalities”: Ukraine anchors its appeals in liberal-humanitarian ideals, while Russia mobilises traditionalist repertoires to contest their universality. Across both cases, these narratives are further adapted for different audiences, mainly Anglophone and Arabic-speaking audiences, showing how gendered suffering is strategically recalibrated to resonate with distinct cultural frameworks. Focusing on the refugee case, the analysis demonstrates how legitimacy and moral authority are negotiated through the politicisation of displacement within an increasingly contested global order. 
