Graphically, the “Z” is clearly closer to the swastika than to any prominent Soviet symbol, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer and sickle, or the red flag. Its use seems to require a double inversion: first, the people of Ukraine—a nation that suffered some of the greatest losses at the hands of Nazi Germany and one that is currently led by a Jewish President—are rendered as Nazis; then, the Russians, who claim to be fighting for peace and “de-Nazification,” adopt a visual symbol that appears to reference the swastika. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, are fighting under the serene blue-and-yellow flag, the colors of which are often interpreted as the colors of a sky over a wheat field. Wearing the colors of the Ukrainian flag has become a method of protesting in Russia, one that can get a person detained. The “Z” is its political and pragmatic opposite, an easy-to-render series of strokes that commits instant visual violence. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/z-is-the-symbol-of-the-new-russian-politics-of-aggression
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Graphically, the “Z” is clearly closer to the swastika than to any prominent Soviet symbol, such as the five-pointed star, the hammer and sickle, or the red flag. Its use seems to require a double inversion: first, the people of Ukraine—a nation that suffered some of the greatest losses at the hands of Nazi Germany and one that is currently led by a Jewish President—are rendered as Nazis; then, the Russians, who claim to be fighting for peace and “de-Nazification,” adopt a visual symbol that appears to reference the swastika. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, are fighting under the serene blue-and-yellow flag, the colors of which are often interpreted as the colors of a sky over a wheat field. Wearing the colors of the Ukrainian flag has become a method of protesting in Russia, one that can get a person detained. The “Z” is its political and pragmatic opposite, an easy-to-render series of strokes that commits instant visual violence.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/z-is-the-symbol-of-the-new-russian-politics-of-aggression