> However, the Russian flag is not banned, just the Z symbol as a symbol for this war. The Z symbol exists for the same reason why the V symbol existed on US m

> However, the Russian flag is not banned, just the Z symbol as a symbol for this war. The Z symbol exists for the same reason why the V symbol existed on US military vehicles in Iraq; It's mainly a friendly fire and unit identifier as Russia and Ukraine use a lot of the same mechanized equipment. While the Anglo V also stands for V as in "Victory" and even has a hand sign associated with it, it's a whole campaign dating back to WWII and Winston Churchill [0]. Me and many of my schoolmates would flash it at US military convoys passing our bus at school trips in the 90s. The soldiers were always super happy about it, while we thought we were signaling "peace" to them. Ultimately the V would morph into a Chevron with different orientations to distinguish what military group a vehicle belongs to [0], but there is a whole propagandist history behind the Anglo use of V, overlapping very much in the same ways of military necessity as the Russian Z does. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150708011459/https://time.com/hive.org/web/20150708011459/http://time.com/3880345/v-for-victory-a-gesture-of-solidarity-and-defiance/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150708011459/https://time.com/... [1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the-inverted-V-on-the-side-corners-of-US-tanks https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the-invert...