The “Z” It first drew attention several weeks ago when it appeared painted about 60 centimeters high on the sides of thousands of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other military vehicles gathering along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
In Russia, the letter began to appear everywhere. There are Z stickers on the back of cars and commercial vehicles, and a talk show host recently showed up wearing a T-shirt with a big white Z.
Some company logos and newspaper names that contained a Z they manipulated the letter to make it stand out. An advertising campaign using billboards in large cities featured a large Z created from a black and orange ribbon, the ribbon of Saint George, which is a symbol of the Russian military.
A Russian military truck with the Z. Photo: Reuters
It is not uncommon for vehicles used in a military campaign to bear an easily identifiable mark: the US Army vehicles used to repel the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. They had a big white chevron painted on them., for example. Seeing that mark spread among civilians is something else.
The ubiquity of the campaign led many to conclude that it was a Kremlin-orchestrated effort to drum up support for the war, not least because it resembled so many previous efforts.
It came with a hashtag with echoes of past wars: “We do not abandon our own”. (That is to our soldiers.) “This is definitely a state-induced meme,” said Vasily Gatov, a Russian-American media analyst in Boston. “There are always people who are receptive to those kinds of messages.”
He pointed out that there was a small army of propagandists whom they were paid to spread the meme on social media to give it a false appearance of popularity.
The fact that some of the usual suspects lined up reinforced the feeling that there was government coordination.
A Russian armored vehicle bears the letter Z in eastern Ukraine. Photo: Reuters
Maria Butina was deported from the United States in 2019 after being sent to jail for working as an unregistered agent for Russia. She is now a member of the Duma or Parliament and posted a video of herself drawing a white Z on the lapel of his jacket.
“Do your job, brothers,” he said in apparent reference to Russian troops in Ukraine. “We will always support them.”
The state television channel RT also spread the symbol.
like hitler
Another online video showed what appeared to be a flash mob in a factory or meeting room of young people wearing black shirts with a Z and danced in formation amidst a sea of Russian flags. Similar videos appeared in previous Kremlin campaigns, with the only difference being the T-shirts.
On social networks, detractors did not miss the opportunity to point out that Hitler had also mobilized thousands of supporters in black shirts, and some manipulated the letter Z to look like the Nazi swastika.
Certainly some of the demonstrations reflected genuine support. On Saturday, for example, Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak wore a Z on his uniform at a competition in Qatar that also featured Ukrainian gymnasts. The Russian coach and some Russian gymnasts publicly defended him, even though the sport’s governing body started a disciplinary procedure.
The symbol has also been used as a threat: Anton Dolin, a prominent film critic who left Russia because of his opposition to the war, posted on Facebook a photo of a giant white Z that someone had spray-painted on the door of his apartment, calling it intimidation attempt.
Its meaning
It is curious that, being a nationalist symbol, the Z used is the Latin alphabet version. The Russian version, of the Cyrillic alphabet, is more rounded and resembles a 3.
After weeks of speculation about its meaning, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that it came from the preposition “Za”, first word of the Russian phrase “Za pobedu”, which means “For the victory”.
That explanation apparently sparked a heated exchange at the United Nations Security Council on Monday, where Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said the “Z” actually stood for “animals”which in Russian means “beasts” or “animals”. His Russian peer, Vasily Nebenzya, replied that the Russians had their own opinion on who were the animals
The New York Times
Translation: Elisa Carnelli
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