From symbols to strategy:

From the onset of the Russia–Ukraine war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has deployed a powerful rhetorical and visual communication strategy to reinforce Ukraine’s sovereignty discourse. His political imagery has continuously adapted to shifting geopolitical and military contexts, shaping both domestic resilience and international support. This study focuses on Zelenskyy’s visual communication during the first year of war in Ukraine. We proposed a mixed-methods analytical framework: The first phase employs automated content analysis to identify recurrent symbols and semiotic elements. The second phase focuses on a semiotic analysis, investigating signs, colours, body language or non-verbal cues, embedded within the multimedia content (n = 3,539, representing 2,921 images and 618 videos) disseminated on his official Telegram channel from 24 February 2022 to 24 February 2023. The results emphasize the role of visual rhetoric in wartime political communication and how symbolic mediation constructs political legitimacy, reinforces national identity, and cultivates international solidarity.