On February 24, 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukraine before the incredulous eyes of the world. From that moment, both the Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Ukrainian Volodimir Zelenski began a parallel battle, no less important for that: that of communication. The media have analyzed the different narratives used by the leaders involved, focused on persuasive verbal speeches, but have ignored the elements of non-verbal communication.
We pay more attention to verbal messages because we value that type of communication more and it is more familiar to us, but researchers have shown that we actually use nonverbal elements more. Albert Mehrabian formulated, in the sixties of the last century, what is known as the 55-38-7 Rule, according to which we allocate 55% to body language, gestures; 38% to paraverbal language, everything that we transmit with the voice; and only 7% to verbal elements. If we add the percentages of the non-verbal, we obtain 93% compared to a meager 7%.
Mehrabian’s formulation focused on the feelings and attitudes that individuals display in interpersonal communication. This allows us to analyze the emotions of our interlocutors and contrast them with the information emitted by the verbal channel. If they match, the message is more likely to arrive successfully and achieve the desired effects. On the contrary, if there are discrepancies in what is broadcast by both channels, dissonances are produced, and that is when doubt appears in the receiver, who is not very clear about what to believe.
In a war context, where propaganda and misinformation take on a special role, the study of non-verbal aspects helps to reveal and complete those others that escape discursive narratives and that can be decisive.
Clothing, for example, sheds a lot of information. Not in vain, in an interpersonal contact, the first image we come across is that of our interlocutor’s clothing. Clothing can tell us about your status (social and economic) and also about more intimate issues, such as hygiene or personal care.
Its function ranges from the most practical, such as sheltering the body (protection), to that of ornamentation, aimed at indicating or affirming the social position of the individual. It also reflects our mood, personality and attitude. Hairstyle and accessories (badges, jewelry, ornaments) help to complete the image we project onto others.
In the case at hand, the differences are obvious and we find very interesting testimonies in this regard. In most of his speeches, Putin appears dressed in a dark suit, white shirt and tie. He often goes without accessories, and rarely chooses a more casual outfit.
The choice of suit denotes formality. He is more in the vein of a business executive or politician than an invader leader. In this sense, he does not move away from his initial message, in which he said that this was not a war, but a “special military operation.” Thus, his clothing reinforces this discourse, since he does not present himself as a military chief, but as a political strategist on the path to redesigning a new international order.
For his part, in most of his addresses, the Ukrainian leader chooses military attire, specifically fatigues, simple, without artifacts such as insignia or similar accessories. He usually appears in a green khaki shirt and pants and, sometimes, if he moves to a battle zone, with a helmet and bulletproof vest.
Before the different international organizations, Zelenski exhibits the same attire and the same composure. His clothing accompanies a face with a broken expression and a sad look. His beard, sometimes scruffy, reflects the fatigue typical of the tense situation in which he operates. His message does not give rise to discussion. His uniform clearly indicates that he is at war, and thus he stands on the side of his compatriots fighting on the battlefield.
We find ourselves, once again, with the dichotomy “special military operation” versus “war”, reflected by non-verbal communicative elements that reinforce, in this case, the verbal information proposed by both leaders.
The distances we maintain in our interpersonal relationships are also very relevant. Our handling of space communicates how much information we are willing to provide to our receiver. While it is true that a very short distance helps to block communication, a distance that is too long makes it difficult.
Many of the moments reported by the media show a Vladimir Putin keeping wide distances in meetings with his interlocutors. When he has received European leaders, such as the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, the separation has been much greater than the one he has maintained with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping or with the Belarusian Aleksandr Lukashenko, with whom he has a closer relationship. Sometimes, even, contacts with members of his own team are made from a long distance, which indicates distrust.
The staging of the performances of both leaders reveals radical differences. Putin usually makes his interventions from the Kremlin Palace, an emblematic fortified construction from the 12th century. Surrounded by luxury, sumptuousness and splendor, it uses very wide spaces where the color white predominates, and is surrounded by golden ornaments, symbols of wealth and power. One more opportunity to appear before public opinion as a strong, powerful leader, within a line orchestrated by the best of propaganda.
Zelenski, on the contrary, opts for discreet and neutral spaces, with light-colored backgrounds, nothing that could denote his location. On occasion, he appears flanked by members of his team, while Putin stages his solo appearances.
Drawing the communication profiles of both leaders is not difficult if we turn to their professional trajectories. The communication skills of one and the other are understood when we put, face to face, a retired theater actor and a former head of the Russian intelligence services. Its drifts, from the point of view of communication, would be at the antipodes, although we could find certain coincidences in the management of resources.
The actors, as the Ukrainian leader was in his day, have an excellent preparation for the interpretation, which includes a mastery of gesticulation and a studied verbalization, with almost surgical vocalization and emphasis. In this sense, Zelenski’s paralinguistics is very rich in nuances and endows his verbal discourses with great strength and conviction. His interventions achieve the empathic connection typical of great communicators.
At the other extreme, we are faced with Putin’s hieratic nature, which makes it extremely difficult to access his emotions and feelings, which invites us to think about the conscious decision to block them.
We assume the training received by Zelensky in his stage as a comedy actor, but we also do not rule out a preparation received by the Russian leader in the KGB. Hiding emotions and feelings and resorting to signs of deception are part of the most advanced programs of today’s intelligence services. This would explain the expressionlessness of the face of the Russian leader, who hardly gesticulates, blocking the possibility of issuing information about his emotions.
Although that inexpressiveness is a constant on Putin’s face, on rare occasions he cracks a smile in front of his like-minded people. In this way, gestures of harmony and proximity are noticed in meetings with his allies.
In Zelenski’s face, however, it is easy to perceive indignation, anger and sadness as defining notes of his emotions, which, in this case, emerge with great ease in most of the situations in which he intervenes and in different situations. public.
The message of the dominant against the dominated, the strong against the weak, David against Goliath is reiterated. The victim/executioner dynamic is thus permanently reflected in a non-verbal communication that reinforces, in most situations, the speeches made by both leaders. Only sometimes does a gesture slip through that can reveal a contradiction between the verbal and non-verbal band, causing a hint of doubt in a receiver attentive to a conflict that is acquiring worrying dimensions in the international geostrategic panorama.
