The mysterious letter 'Z' used to show support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Just a few days after the Ukrainian invasion began, a mysterious symbol emerged all over Russia. The letter Z, and to a lesser extent O and V, was first seen in Russian tanks and military personnel but soon grew to become a symbol of the war itself. But what does Z means?

Making things even more mysterious, the letter Z doesn’t even exist in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is how Russian is written. Its equivalent would be the letter (З). Why Z if it’s not even Russian?

One theory commented by the BBC is that Z stands for “Zapad” (запад), which is the Russian word for “West”. This would explain why some tanks are marked V, which would be for “Vostok” (восток), “East” in Russian.

Another theory pointed out by Al Jazeera Is that the Russian word for “for” (за) is rendered as “Za” in the Latin alphabet, allowing all sorts of interpretations. “For Putin”, “For Justice”, “For the Motherland”, etc.

Pictured: People carrying a banner with the message “For Putin” during a concert in Moscow in celebration of the annexation of Crimea.

The Russian Ministry of Defense, highlights The Guardian, hinted on social media that it means “For Victory” while V would supposedly stand for “Our strength is in truth”.

An early attempt to decipher Z on Russian state media cited by The New Yorker argues that V and Z might stand for Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine who is heading the resistance against Russia’s invasion.

The symbol is usually seen in black and orange, colors associated with the Ribbon of St. George, one of the most important military decorations of Imperial Russia. The award has been revived by the Russian Federation.

Since the mid-2000s, it has become customary to wear the ribbon around Victory Day to show respect and support to the veterans, similar to how people in the UK wear a red poppy on Remembrance Day.

Nonetheless, the ribbon has evolved to become a symbol to represent support to Putin and the Russian military.

The use of the black-and-orange ribbon by pro-Russian groups in Crimea and the Donbas led to its prohibition by the Ukrainian government in 2017.

Throughout history, the twenty-sixth letter of the English alphabet has been a shorthand for a myriad of things. The most memorable is probably Zorro.

A masked swashbuckler in colonial California, the character created by Johnston McCulley in 1919 was one of the inspirations of Batman and has been played through the years by Douglas Fairbanks, Guy Williams, and Antonio Banderas (pictured).

During the time of the military junta in Greece (1967-1974), Z became a symbol of protest, the letter is a homophone to “He lives”, a reference to assassinated politician Grigoris Lambrakis.

The death of Lambrakis would be the basis of the 1969 movie 'Z', by Greek filmmaker Costa-Gravas.

On a lighter note, Z is also the symbol of Zorglub, a recurring villain of the French-Belgian comics ‘Spirou et Fantasio’.

Image: Dupois

French right-wing politician Éric Zemmour played with this for the title and cover of his book 'Z comme Zemmour', published in 2011.

Image: Le Cherche Midi.

However, the use of a seemingly random but memorable letter leading to lots of talk about secret codes brings to mind Donald Trump and the QAnon conspiracy.

Q was supposedly an insider from his administration, sharing information to bring down a cabal that was conspiring against the US president.

Q became wildly popular in some internet circles, and his followers could be seen sporting the letter in Trump rallies. Trump’s evasive answers about Q only fueled more speculation.

The HBO documentary 'Q: Into The Storm' speculates that the supposed informer might have been just a conspiracy theorist running an internet forum. Whatever it was, there was nothing vast or meaningful behind it, but still convinced many to rally to the US Capitol.

Meanwhile, the mystery around Z continues. “This is definitely a state-induced meme,” said Vasily Gatov, a Russian-American media analyst based in Boston, to The New York Times. “There are always people receptive to this kind of message.”