Coverage of the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine in scientific works: Bibliometric analysis

Abstract

The barbaric war of Russia against Ukraine is accompanied by the death of tens of thousands of people. Millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave their places of residence, hundreds of thousands had their homes completely destroyed, and a large part of the country's enterprises, energy and transport infrastructure was disabled. This war violates all international laws and, in fact, is a challenge to the entire civilized world. Its causes and consequences are discussed, analyzed, and considered by society and experts. Scientists do not ignore it either. The increase in publications on the topic of war and the uniqueness of this kind of research caused the desire to map the corresponding thematic landscape and identify the main trends. The methodological basis of analysis in the presented study was in-built Scopus instruments, Bibliometrix R package and Biblioshiny App, InfraNodus. The study includes two sections, namely, time section (compares publications for the entire period of the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine (2014–2023), as well as before and after the full-scale invasion (2020–2021 and 2022–2023), and geographical section (compares publications of international and Ukrainian scientific communities). The dynamics of publications, their structure by subject areas, countries, affiliations, authors, and sponsors were analyzed. According to the results of cluster, sentiment and narrative analysis, there is a shift in substantive emphasis after February 24, 2022 towards the interpretation of events as a full-scale war (52% of publications as a whole and 60% of publications by authors with Ukrainian affiliation), taking into account the consequences for the global energy, food, and other types of security. The identified structural gaps in the analyzed works create the basis for developing directions for overcoming the consequences of the war in various areas and post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.