On Tuesday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had called upon all the nations to boycott Russia by criminalizing the use of the symbol ‘Z’.
In a tweet, he wrote, “I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ’Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.”
The significance of the ‘Z’ symbol in the Russia-Ukraine war
As per a report in The Guardian, Russian military tanks, trucks and other hardware were found painted with Zs. Although the letter ‘Z’ does not exist in the Cyrillic Russian alphabet, there are several theories surrounding its recent usage of it by the Kremlin.
“The most popular theory used by military experts to explain the letter is that they were written according to the respective areas where the Russian troops are usually stationed, with Z potentially standing for Zapad (west),” reported The Guardian.
It further added, “Others believe the letters were drawn in an attempt to avoid friendly fire, while some pro-Kremlin Russian military experts have speculated that the letter Z stands for the name of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the letter V for Vladimir Putin.”
It found a lot of supporters. Many Russians are putting “Z” on their cars – that’s totally voluntary and to my best knowledge nobody’s forcing them pic.twitter.com/sanIdE1rwE
— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 6, 2022
According to the Russian defence Ministry, ‘Z’ stood for Za pobedu (victory). NPR had earlier reported that State-funded media Russia Today (RT) had been selling merchandise, including hoodies and T-Shirts with the ‘Z’ symbol embroidered on them.
Earlier this month, a 20-year-old Russian gymnast named Ivan Kuliak wore a ‘Z’ symbol taped to his leotard during the gymnastics World Cup event in Qatar. Although he was criticised by the International Gymnastics Federation (IGF), he said that he would do it again if given a second chance.
Critics have dubbed the ‘Z’ symbol as Putin’s version of the Nazi symbol ‘hooked cross’ (Hakenkreuz).
Germany bans Putin’s swastika
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 28, 2022
Symbolism with Z, if used in support of Russia’s invasion of #Ukraine, will be considered illegal.
“The letter Z is not prohibited, but its use in some cases may represent an approval of Russia’s aggressive war,” the #German Interior Ministry said. pic.twitter.com/eHy7Z1ohfM
Besides the ‘Z’ symbol, Russian forces were also seen brandishing the English alphabet ‘V’. As per a report in The Scotsman, ‘V’ is aligned with Russian phrases such as ‘Сила правде’ (Power of Truth) and ‘задача будет выполнена’ (task will be completed)
