N°021_Vol.1_22

Introduction: Language in political crises is never a neutral vehicle of information. In moments of war, it becomes a medium through which leaders assign responsibility, frame threats, legitimate action, and attempt to reorder the moral and strategic imagination of their audiences. Speech, in such circumstances, does not merely describe reality; it acts upon it. This performative dimension of political language is particularly evident in wartime addresses delivered to influential international audiences.  In such contexts, a leader’s words are intended not only to communicate a position, but also to influence how others respond to the situation. An utterance may for example call for action, seek support, justify a decision or place responsibility on another party. From a pragmatic perspective, such addresses therefore provide a useful site for examining the relationship between linguistic choices, political intentions, and the circumstances in which the speech is delivered. It is within this perspective that Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the Munich Security Conference on February 17, 2024 deserves renewed scholarly attention. Considering the fact that the speech is delivered at a critical stage of the Russia-Ukraine war (amid mounting battlefield pressure, anxieties over military aid, debates over sanctions enforcement, and widening uncertainty about the resilience of the rules-based international order) it cannot be reduced to a ceremonial political statement. It is more accurately read as a strategic act of wartime diplomacy aimed at transforming military urgency into diplomatic pressure, moral outrage into coalition solidarity, and international sympathy into material commitment. Zelenskyy’s discourse at Munich was not only aimed at informing the world of Ukraine’s plight but it was also a deliberate attempt to mobilize allies, reframe the war as a systemic security crisis, and redistribute the burden of responsibility for the continuation of the conflict.

It is against this background that speech act theory provides a useful way of approaching political discourse of this kind. Instead of  focusing only on what political leaders say, the theory draws attention to what they seek to accomplish through their words. Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1969) contributions are particularly relevant in this respect, as they show that utterances can perform different kinds of social actions. For instance, leaders can make claims, issue warnings, urge others to act, express attitudes, or undertake commitments. Such possibilities are especially important in political speeches, where a statement about an event may at the same time serve a persuasive or strategic purpose. Existing studies of political discourse, particularly presidential and diplomatic speeches, have nevertheless tended to concentrate on identifying and classifying speech acts. While this approach is useful for establishing the illocutionary profile of a speech, it does not always explain how particular acts derive their significance from the political circumstances in which they are produced. In wartime discourse, for example, an assertion about military developments may also be intended to create a sense of urgency, while an appeal for assistance may simultaneously place responsibility on those being addressed. Examining speech acts in relation to their context therefore makes it possible to connect linguistic choices with the political purposes they serve.

This concern is particularly relevant to Zelenskyy’s wartime rhetoric. His speeches are delivered in circumstances in which military developments, international support, sanctions, and the future of European security are closely intertwined. Consequently, representative and directive acts cannot be considered apart from the circumstances in which they occur. What matters is not simply how frequently a particular type of speech act appears, but what it contributes to the broader argument of the speech as well. Previous studies have shown that Zelenskyy’s speeches frequently draw on representative and directive acts, yet less attention has been paid to the way these acts operate within the pressures of an ongoing war, including military attrition, uncertainty over external support, sanctions politics, and competing understandings of peace and European security. This leaves room for a more context-sensitive examination of the pragmatic work performed by speech acts in his wartime discourse.

The present study takes up this concern by examining Zelenskyy’s Munich address as a pragmatic intervention in wartime diplomacy. It does not seek merely to identify and classify the speech acts occurring in the address. Rather, it considers how they are used to present the war as an immediate security concern, challenge international passivity, assign responsibility, and encourage a stronger collective response. The focus is therefore on the relationship between the linguistic form of the acts, their intended force, and the geopolitical circumstances in which they are produced. Alternatively put, the study asks how language becomes part of diplomatic action when a head of state addresses an international audience whose political decisions can have direct consequences for the course of an ongoing war.

The following research questions guide the investigation. First, what major speech acts structure Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 2024 Munich Security Conference speech? Second, how are these speech acts used to convey wartime urgency, present Russia’s invasion as a wider international security concern, and encourage action from Ukraine’s partners? Third, how does the combination of these acts contribute to the speech’s diplomatic and persuasive purposes in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war?

The study is guided by three hypotheses. First, representative speech acts are expected to occur most frequently, but their role is likely to go beyond the presentation of information. They are expected to help establish the seriousness of the situation and provide grounds for the demands that follow. Second, directive acts are expected to play an important persuasive role, particularly where Zelenskyy seeks stronger military assistance, continued sanctions, and a more decisive response from partner states. Third, the interaction of representative, directive, expressive, and commissive acts is expected to show that the speech performs several functions at once: it describes the war, expresses moral and political positions, calls for action, and commits the speaker to a particular course of resistance. The study consequently seeks to make three related contributions. First, it treats speech act analysis as more than a matter of categorizing utterances by illocutionary type, paying closer attention to the circumstances and purposes that give those acts their force. Second, it places Zelenskyy’s rhetoric within the concrete political realities of wartime diplomacy, particularly the need to maintain military and political support from international partners. Third, it contributes to research on political pragmatics and war discourse by showing how speech acts can operate simultaneously as linguistic choices and as instruments of political action. From this perspective, Zelenskyy’s Munich address is not simply a text describing the Russia-Ukraine war. It is also an attempt to influence how the war is understood, who is held responsible for its continuation, and what the international community should do in response. Last but not least, it contributes to wider debates in discourse studies, political communication, and war rhetoric by demonstrating that speech acts in high-stakes political addresses may function simultaneously as linguistic acts, diplomatic instruments, and strategic attempts to reorder the moral architecture of international response. The discussion that follows therefore approaches Zelenskyy’s Munich address as more than a speech about war. Indeed, it reads it as a discursive site where language, diplomacy, and geopolitical struggle meet, and where the pragmatics of saying becomes inseparable from the politics of making others act.