CHANGES AT THE LEXICAL AND SEMANTIC LEVEL OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE DURING THE WAR PERIOD OF 2022–2026

Abstract

The article examines lexical and semantic changes in Ukrainian media discourse during the full-scale Russian- Ukrainian war. The material comprises lexical items identified in fifteen publications of the online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda issued between 23 April 2022 and 20 July 2026. The study aims to clarify the interrelations among new nominations, war-related neosemanticisation of common words, the renewal of military terminology, the adaptation of foreign-language names, and the expanded use of substandard and stylistically marked vocabulary. The descriptive method was used to systematise the material. Contextual-semantic and component analyses established the meanings of the selected items and the nature of their semantic changes; word-formation and functional-stylistic analyses revealed their structure, stylistic marking, and media use. Chronologically distant contexts were compared to trace changes in the form, meaning, and communicative status of particular units. The findings show that the lexical innovations form overlapping and shifting categories. New nominations arise through compression, abbreviation, affixation, and the adaptation of borrowed stems, whereas common words acquire war-related meanings through metaphorical and metonymic transfer. Names of weapons occur in Latin-script and Cyrillic forms, display different degrees of graphic and grammatical adaptation, and enter Ukrainian syntactic patterns while retaining technical precision. Substandard units appear in reported speech, metalinguistic discussion, and an author’s column. Their increased media visibility indicates public recognisability but does not prove their acceptance as part of the standard language. The study concludes that lexical renewal in Ukrainian wartime media discourse is multidirectional and involves interconnected nominative, semantic, word-formational, grammatical, and functional-stylistic changes.