Russian Informational Co-Aggression? Ukraine-Related Disinformation in Belarusian Pro-Government Telegram Channels

Description

This dataset documents over 400 instances of Ukraine-related disinformation identified in more than 80,000 posts published in 2024 across seven major pro-government Telegram channels in Belarus. These channels include: Belorusskiy silovik, Obyektivnyy Yevgen, Zholtyye slivy Premium, Eto drugoye, Zapadnyye zaychiki, BelVPO, and Nevolfovich.

Data collection was guided by the definition of disinformation outlined in the Information Disorder report (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017), which defines disinformation as “information that is false and deliberately created to harm a person, social group, organization, or country” (p. 20). The identified cases were grouped into recurring thematic clusters that emerged during the analysis. Prominent themes include: "Ukraine’s military draft," "Negative public opinion on Ukraine-related matters in Western countries," "Corruption."

The dataset was compiled by four trained and experienced coders and a team lead. Initially, resource constraints limited the analysis to five Telegram channels. In July 2024, however, two additional sources — Belorusskiy silovik and BelVPO — were added. Each of the seven channels had an estimated audience of at least around 20,000 subscribers in 2024.

Countries

Belarus Ukraine

Keywords

Belarus Telegram Content Analysis Russo-Ukrainian War Disinformation

Language of data

Russian

Disciplines

Comparative Politics, Media Studies

Methods of data collection

Qualitative Content Analysis