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Because Ukraine and Russia operate the same vehicles, friendly fire is an even greater danger than usual. Russia uses 3 different symbols on their vehicles depe
by jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
Because Ukraine and Russia operate the same vehicles, friendly fire is an even greater danger than usual. Russia uses 3 different symbols on their vehicles depending which group they're from. Z is for the eastern front as I recall.
Ukraine, for their part, likes to just paint a simple Ukrainian flag.
- int_19h 4y agoWe don't know exactly what the letters originally meant, but the most likely theory is that Z is for "zapad" meaning "west", and V is for "vostok", meaning "east", and they correspond to the Russian west and east military districts. As for Ukrainian vehicles, they can be often seen adorned with white crosses in the more recent photos.
- SauciestGNU 4y agoBut why Latin Z and V and not З и В?
- int_19h 4y agoMuch easier to draw with a bucket of paint and a brush. Also easier to distinguish at a distance. A tongue-in-cheek joke in Russia is that these aren't actually Z and V, but rather Ꙁ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_(Cyrillic)#History_and_shape https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze_(Cyrillic)#History_and_shap...) and Ѵ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhitsa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhitsa), both a part of the historical early Cyrillic alphabet, symbolizing the return to "tradition".
- SauciestGNU 4y agoThanks for the context, I'm a beginner in Russian and don't know much history of the language.