The study investigates the processes related to the word semantics in mass media texts in the time of acute ideological confrontation. The contexts in which the meanings of ideologically tainted lexemes are reinterpreted in light of both international and Russian social and political realities are considered. It is noted that there is a varying depth of the changes, i.e. different lexical meanings can be attributed to a word, e new semantic features may be added to word semantics, only evaluative connotations can be changed. The paper shows how “the motif of the war” influences the semantic transformations of various lexemes.