One of the little military mysteries of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been solved, at least partially.
This Wednesday (2), the Russian Ministry of Defense published, on Instagram, what would be the explanations for the letters “Z” and “V”, in the same Latin alphabet, on the bodies of its military vehicles in the neighboring country.
The function itself is known: to avoid friendly fire, since much of the equipment, such as tanks and trucks, are externally the same as those operated by the Ukrainians: both countries were defended by the same Red Army until the Soviet end of 1991.
The omnipresent “Z” is, according to the folder, “Za pobedu” (for victory). And the “V” fits into two sentences: “Cila v pravde” (strength is in truth) and “V zadatsa vipolnena” (the task will be completed).
What doesn’t seem to make sense is that the letters are in the Latin alphabet, not used in Ukraine either. The “Z” doesn’t even exist in the Cyrillic adopted by both countries. In time, VZ are the Latin initials of Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, which has been fueling various theories about the lyrics.
Some saw Slavic runes, others saw the Latin use of the word Zapad (West), the name of the quadrennial exercise with Russian and Belarusian forces that for years haunted the West as an invasion rehearsal.
Furthermore, the Kiev military had released its interpretation of the circles and triangles of each symbol, associating them with specific formations of the invading forces.
In addition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces identified other letters, such as the “X” (J, in the Portuguese transliteration), which would mean troops of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadirov.
On the Ukrainian side, precisely to avoid friendly fire, defenders are identified with blue or yellow adhesive tapes, the national colors, as armbands.
In the dirt on the floor of this war, every soldier is greenish khaki.
