Russians need some way to tell friend from foe because Russian and Ukrainian military vehicles derive from the same Soviet root and are hard to tell apart visually. Back in the Soviet era the Ukraine was a center for weapons manufacturing so many Soviet weapons were "made in Ukraine."
I'd expect other military forces to use identification marks in a similar way.
Laws of war refer to the patch on the shoulder, nothing else. Otherwise it would be completely up to interpretation if somebody is part of a nation state's armed forces.
> Isn't this style of beard typically worn more by Ukrainians than Russians?
> Does this guys have a "Z" meaning he's a Russian soldier? Or is it civilian fan of World War Z?
This post smells of propaganda and queue-anon promulgators. (OP’s post history is quite telling.)
Not once did the Wikipedia creator mention (Z)apad or (V)ostok. These vehicles are designated such to mark their order of battle during the pre-invasion pretend exercises that they came from—-West/Zapad or East/Vostok. Western brigades and divisions also have identifiers.
What is it with myth-creators and their gravitation toward symbols?
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."
In general, yes. But the parent specifically says that the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention something whereas it actually mentions it, so I assumed they haven't read the whole thing.
This reminds me a bit of how "thumb+index finger together, other three fingers up" became a "white supremacy" sign last year. It is generally an interesting dynamic when an innocuous/unrelated symbol becomes a "gang sign", not necessarily because of the actions of a "gang", but because others (even opponents) see it being accidentally used. So the "gang" starts really using the (previously innocuous) symbol to spite/make fun of the opponents that originally noticed it. I have seen it happen both among "gangs" that I see as virtuous and "right" and among groups I view as morally bankrupt.
I don't see that connection. What's the 'accidental use' you're implying here? How is using the "Z" not due to "actions of the gang"(=Russians)? Thousands of trucks of the Russian Army are using it accidentally or to mock the Ukrainians because the latter "imagined" seeing it? And then the athlete stumbled into a sowing machine?
You are reading a bit too much into my comment. The accidental use I am implying is that 'Z' seems to have originally stood for a merely administrative marking on forces in the west of Russia. The 'Z' evolving into a symbol of the conflict as a whole and the (Russian-perceived) righteousness is the new meaning. It turned from a administrative minutia (thousands of trucks being marked with it for logistics purposes) into a way to mock the opponent and rile up the supporter (how the athlete used it). However, according to the sibling comment, my comparison to the "ok hand sign" seems to have been flawed, because it seems the ok hand sign has been troll-ish from the very beginning.
I'm just trying to make sense of your comment. "because others (even opponents) see it being accidentally used", "the "gang" starts really using the (previously innocuous) symbol to spite/make fun of the opponents that originally noticed it" are your words, not mine.
I will try to rephrase, similar to my last comment. It seems the "Z" was purely administrative at first. But we see it on all the vehicles of people committing atrocities and associate it with the actions, not with administrivia. And the entities that want to perpetuate these actions notice and elevate the administrative symbol to a sign of their perceived righteousness.
This isn't my observation. The OK sign was used explicitly to represent white supremacy by people who wanted to "troll" others into believing it was being used that way "earnestly". But using X symbol to represent Y is not something that is subject to earnestness nor irony - i.e. meaning follows usage, not the other way around (and that is not even considering the fact that a subset of people participating in the trolling did explicitly support white supremacy). That property is intrinsic to language. When you use a symbol to represent something, then it is being used to represent that thing. It is self-fulfilling. If I merely told you that some symbol X represented Y, then I would be lying. If I used symbol X to represent Y, and got a large enough group of other people to do it, then I am creating a new contextual meaning for symbol X. People reacting to its use are not "tricked". They are responding to a reality I have created.
Since the most seen sign of those is the "Z", meaning the "Eastern Military District", does that mean Putin is sending "non-slavic" Eastern Russians (Mongolian etc) to be slaughtered in Ukraine? How racist...
It's easier to order non-Slavic people to fight Slavs. Russians living in Western Russia have families in Ukraine and would be hard to convince to fight.
Literally the first reference I saw to this was in the FSB leaker's comment that it is about to become the new swastika, i.e., a symbol associated with barbarity and fascist military aggression married to millenarian dead-ender ideology.
That Putin is going all-in on using the tooling of cult mobilization in this fashion is one more indication that this doesn't stop until we stop him.
It’s a bit surreal that a recognition stripe that was probably intentionally meaningless somehow evolved into this especially since it’s not the only one.
Z, boxed Z, O, V, and a few others been used.
Recognition stripes are intended to be on one hand easily recognizable and on the other meaningless so to be not confused with symbols or markings used by any of the belligerents involved in the conflict.
The whole backstory behind them was most likely retconned by Russian propaganda simply because of the attention it drew.
If nothing else it’s a showcase of how lacking the Russian army is in comms, IFF and blue force tracking compared to western armies.
And by all accounts it doesn’t seem to even reduce friendly fire that much since the Russians have been firing on their forces too.
Also it was also cleverly promoted by putinists as provocation since if you type letter Z strikethrough you'll get wolfsangel and therefore become a nazi, however we all know who is the real nazi in this war.
All of that more likely than not was retconned and mainly by bored westerners on the internet.
It was chosen because its easy to paint, recognize and you won’t confuse it with markings normally used by either side.
Z is and boxed Z is only used by the forces which invaded eastern Ukraine and from Crimea, airborne, marines and the forces from Belarus use different recognition stripes.
If anything the west made a story about it which allowed Russian propaganda to turn it into a thing.
If more people would covered the fact that the Russian army is so poor that it needs to rely on recognition stripes instead of modern IFF it might not have become a nationalist symbol in Russia.
> annex a territory, fund insurgence, kill innocent civilians
Not Nazi.
> destroy holocaust memorial,
fake news and not Nazi.
war of aggression /= Nazi.
The Nazis themselves has two major non-Nazi allies doing these same things (but not the genocide, which was kind of the Nazis special talent) at the same time.
Correct, they don't tolerate neonazi ideology now, most of them are still nationalist and right wing populists. Regardless of what Putin tries to spew, they don't govern Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion#Current_status
53 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadI'd expect other military forces to use identification marks in a similar way.
Ukraine doesn't have a better blue force tracker so any Ukrainian drivers of such vehicles would be in a huge risk.
> Isn't this style of beard typically worn more by Ukrainians than Russians?
> Does this guys have a "Z" meaning he's a Russian soldier? Or is it civilian fan of World War Z?
etc
Not once did the Wikipedia creator mention (Z)apad or (V)ostok. These vehicles are designated such to mark their order of battle during the pre-invasion pretend exercises that they came from—-West/Zapad or East/Vostok. Western brigades and divisions also have identifiers.
What is it with myth-creators and their gravitation toward symbols?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I still contend the Wikipedia initial entry was created for myth-making. It’s a good thing it can be edited.
This isn't my observation. The OK sign was used explicitly to represent white supremacy by people who wanted to "troll" others into believing it was being used that way "earnestly". But using X symbol to represent Y is not something that is subject to earnestness nor irony - i.e. meaning follows usage, not the other way around (and that is not even considering the fact that a subset of people participating in the trolling did explicitly support white supremacy). That property is intrinsic to language. When you use a symbol to represent something, then it is being used to represent that thing. It is self-fulfilling. If I merely told you that some symbol X represented Y, then I would be lying. If I used symbol X to represent Y, and got a large enough group of other people to do it, then I am creating a new contextual meaning for symbol X. People reacting to its use are not "tricked". They are responding to a reality I have created.
First time I remember a symbol going from nothing to transnational sign of allegiance in ¬10 days.
At least that's what some analysts attribute to their meaning. I suspect it's to delineate chains of command when they meet in the field.
That Putin is going all-in on using the tooling of cult mobilization in this fashion is one more indication that this doesn't stop until we stop him.
This Z is just one-half svastika waiting for a meme. A symbol of dishonor.
Z, boxed Z, O, V, and a few others been used.
Recognition stripes are intended to be on one hand easily recognizable and on the other meaningless so to be not confused with symbols or markings used by any of the belligerents involved in the conflict.
The whole backstory behind them was most likely retconned by Russian propaganda simply because of the attention it drew.
If nothing else it’s a showcase of how lacking the Russian army is in comms, IFF and blue force tracking compared to western armies.
And by all accounts it doesn’t seem to even reduce friendly fire that much since the Russians have been firing on their forces too.
Also it was also cleverly promoted by putinists as provocation since if you type letter Z strikethrough you'll get wolfsangel and therefore become a nazi, however we all know who is the real nazi in this war.
It was chosen because its easy to paint, recognize and you won’t confuse it with markings normally used by either side.
Z is and boxed Z is only used by the forces which invaded eastern Ukraine and from Crimea, airborne, marines and the forces from Belarus use different recognition stripes.
If anything the west made a story about it which allowed Russian propaganda to turn it into a thing.
If more people would covered the fact that the Russian army is so poor that it needs to rely on recognition stripes instead of modern IFF it might not have become a nationalist symbol in Russia.
what IFF do you use for every tank and truck?
Not Nazi.
> destroy holocaust memorial,
fake news and not Nazi.
war of aggression /= Nazi.
The Nazis themselves has two major non-Nazi allies doing these same things (but not the genocide, which was kind of the Nazis special talent) at the same time.
As far as I can tell, it did happen, and there is visual evidence of it.