The relevance of studying political cartoons as a form of visual communication is driven by their capacity to concisely reflect socio-political processes, shape public opinion, and influence the interpretation of the Russian-Ukrainian war. This article aimed to analyse how Russia’s full-scale armed aggression against Ukraine was represented in British political cartoons published in “The Times” and “The Sunday Times” during the first year of the war. The research methodology was grounded in an interdisciplinary approach combining media studies, visual-analytical methods, and tools of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. This combination captured the specific nature of political cartoons as visual informational products that simultaneously interpret and construct public perceptions. The study demonstrated that British cartoonists actively employed satire to frame the conflict through a clear moral dichotomy of “good and evil”. The visual narratives primarily centred on the Russian president as the main instigator, whose image evolved from a self-confident aggressor into a demonised symbol of cruelty and moral degradation, particularly following the atrocities in Bucha. In contrast, utilising the David and Goliath motif, the Ukrainian president was consistently depicted as the archetype of heroic national resistance. Cartoonists actively highlighted the war’s global consequences (energy and food crises) and criticised Western political hesitation, the UK’s domestic controversies (e.g., the Partygate scandal), and bureaucratic failures in managing the refugee crisis. Quantitative analysis indicated a natural decline in publication frequency over the year, reflecting the media phenomenon of attention fatigue. Nevertheless, the unprecedented concentration of visual satirical materials during the early months secured a definitive victory for Ukraine in the informational “war of images”. The practical significance of this research lies in its applicability to studies of media discourse, visual propaganda, and the formation of international perceptions of contemporary armed conflicts

Russian-Ukrainian war; British satirical discourse; caricature; visual narratives; visual propaganda; mass media; newspaper