Who stands behind Z? (a hypothesis)

May 15, 2022 thread

Invasion of Ukraine revolutionised the Russian symbolics introducing a new, previously unknown symbol Z. What does Z even mean? Neither Russians, nor foreigners have any idea. It is clearly a forced meme. And I have a guess on who forced it

The choice of Z-letter looks weird. First, it doesn't look like anything Russian or Soviet propaganda used before, making it hard to understand. Second, it's not a Cyrillic, but a foreign looking Latin letter. Which makes its choice as a symbol for the "patriotic" war problematic

Unlike most European alphabets which are based on Latin, Russian alphabet evolved from the Greek, which makes it harder for Westerners to understand. Some of the Russian letters look alike their Western analogues - A, E, K, O, C, T. But Russian "З" (ze) looks nothing like "Z"

In pretty much all of official propaganda slogans are written with normal Cyrillic letters. And only two letters - В and З are written in Latin as V and Z. Paradoxically, using this Latin letters instead of normal Cyrillic ones manifests loyalism and support of the war in Ukraine

Changing Russian З and В letters to Latin Z and V, you shows your loyalism. Other letters don't have to be changed. That's why names of pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and chats now look as a weird mix of Cyrillic and Latin. If it was all in Cyrillic, it would be viewed as neutral

Of these two pro-war symbols Z and V the former is viewed as more "radical". That's how you track the gradual disillusionment in this war. Take this channel. It used to be called "Империя курильщика|Z". Very radical. Then radical Z changed to a moderate V. Now he deleted even V

What does Z mean? Nobody quite understands. Some try to explain it as the first letter of the phrase "За победу" (For victory). But why do you need to replace a normal Russian З to a weird Latin Z which has almost no recognisable allusions to the Russian culture or narrative?

So far I haven't found good explanations of what does Z mean. These analyses for example don't look sufficient. One points out to Z being a dynamic letter easy to paint. That's not wrong. Another calls it "dangerous". That's not wrong either. Still, it doesn't explain anything

Russians are just as puzzled by Z as Westerners. Watch Russian state TV trying to Zsplain to its audience. They admit that the choice of Latin letters Z and V is a "secret that preoccupies everyone". They admit it's a problem and try to link them to the ancient Cyrillic letters

We have a problematic symbol. It's completely ununderstandable and previously unknown. It's also Latin which makes it problematic in the context of a patriotic war against the West. And of course it's forced down everyone's throats by the power of the state. Prisoners have no choice