A Corpus Assisted Discourse Study of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Wartime Addresses

This article reports a corpus-based comparative analysis of the English-language transcripts of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s nightly video addresses during two one-month periods of the Russia–Ukraine war: 24 February–23 March 2022 and 24 February–23 March 2023. Two specialized corpora were compiled from the official presidential website (≈60,823 and ≈28,300 tokens, respectively) and processed in LancsBox. The study combines quantitative procedures—word frequency profiling, keyword analysis using simple maths and Cohen’s d, concordance inspection, and collocation analysis (GraphColl)—with qualitative political discourse analysis to identify salient themes. Results indicate similarity in core narratives (national unity, defence, invasion) alongside marked shifts in lexical choice and stance. In 2022, keywords represent immediate defence and crisis (e.g., invaders, invasion, corridors, Mariupol, Melitopol), while in 2023 the discourse moves toward actors and coordination (e.g., Bakhmut, warriors, occupier/brigade, cooperation, justice, security). Collocational profiling of the node war shows 2022 patterns centred on against, after, Ukraine, day, world, whereas 2023 emphasises Russia, full-scale, during, suggesting a stronger attribution of agency and an increasingly international framing. Concordance choice further shows a move from early shock/negation toward more institutional, coalition-oriented messaging. Across both corpora, personalization via the lemma Putin is notably limited, which supports a strategic focus on broader geopolitical framing. The findings show both similarities and differences in President’s crisis communication across the first and thirteenth months of the war.