Patriotic Discourse in Runet: Before and after February 24, 2022

The patriotic upsurge recorded after February 24, 2022 found a very peculiar reflection in the Russian-language segment of the Internet. Although the pollsters are almost unanimous in the fact that the social well-being of citizens and their attitude towards the authorities have improved, the digital footprints of these changes are not so noticeable - from the outside, only the increased polarization along the for - against line is visible. This study measures the immediate (short-term) effect that the onset of the special military operation in Ukraine had on the sentiment of the Russian Internet users. Based on a sentiment analysis of over 300 thousand publications on social networks, the author shows that the online environment almost did not accept the consensus that, apparently, had developed in the offline space. The results of regression and thematic analysis show a slight but statistically significant increase in negativity in Internet publications on topics related to patriotism after the onset of the special military operation. The second turning point in terms of the tone of publications on the topic of patriotism was the adoption of the law on discrediting the army on March 4, 2022 - at this point the probability of seeing a positive post increases. In addition, the analysis shows that the use of Russian social networks is consistently associated with a more positive tone of the messages compared to foreign ones. The author suggests that the reason for the observed contradiction lies in the specifics of the Runet audience, which is more prone to political activism and identity demonstration compared to the general population of the country.