Ming Inspector Zou Wenxue
At a glance
- In response to Russia's use of the letters "Z" and "V" as war symbols and war propaganda in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada passed a bill on April 1 prohibiting the use of Russian military propaganda in Ukraine, including the use of letters such as "Z" and "V", which appear to be symbolic of invasion in Ukraine, and their corresponding Cyrillic letters.
Event background
Recently, the Chinese Simplified network circulated a message that "Ukraine passed a bill banning the use of the letters Z and V", Chinese media quoted the Russian news agency as saying that the Latin letters "Z" and "V" were banned in Ukraine because they were seen as symbols of support for the Russian army. As soon as the news came out, it was ridiculed by netizens: 26 letters have been missing two in Ukraine since then? Isn't the president of Ukraine going to change his name?
Mingcha
Where does the message originate?
After verification, on April 1, the Russian news agency did publish an article on its official website entitled "Rada disables the symbols Z and V". The article mentions that Ukraine Lada has passed Act No. 7214 prohibiting people from using the symbols "V" and "Z" in Ukraine.
Screenshot of the Russian news agency report.
Search for "Verkhovna Rada 7214" and find a corresponding announcement on the official website of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) saying that the Ukrainian Verkhovna has passed a law prohibiting the promotion of the Russian regime, the Russian Federation's military operations against Ukraine, and the symbols of this military operation. The announcement mentioned that the Latin letters "Z" and "V" were seen as symbols of the "Russian invasion of Ukraine."
Screenshot of the official website of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
Only 24 of the 26 letters left?
So, does The prohibition of the symbols "Z" and "V" in Ukrainian legislation mean that "only 24 of the 26 letters remain" in Ukraine from now on?
The first thing to be clear is that the official language of the Ukrainian state is Ukrainian. The alphabet system used in Ukrainian is a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet, consisting of a total of 33 letters, of which there are no letters "Z" and "V". The surname of Ukrainian President Zelenskiy, who was ridiculed by some netizens as being affected by this bill, is written in Ukrainian as "Зеленський". Therefore, the so-called "only 24 of the 26 letters" and "the president changed his name" can only be regarded as a joke at best.
The alphabet system used in Ukrainian consists of 33 letters.
At the same time, the prohibition of the letters "Z" and "V" provided for in Act 7214 has specific contexts and restrictions on their application. The background of this bill is that since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Russian side has used letters such as "Z" and "V" to carry out war propaganda in the Russian army, such as spraying relevant letters on the surface of Russian military equipment, and upgrading these letters into war symbols. According to the Russian Defense Ministry's explanation on Its official Instagram account on March 3, the letter "Z" is the Romanized expression "za pobedu" in the Romanized character "za pobedu" of the Russian expression "за победу", which stands for "for victory"; and the letter "V" is taken from the Romanized expression "sila v pravde", which means "power of truth", which means "power of truth".
In response to this symbolic propaganda of the Russian army, Ukraine Rada believes that it is necessary to enact laws to counter propaganda from the Russian side. However, the specific meaning of "Z" and "V" has been defined at least three times in the original text of Bill 7214. First of all, in the preface, Act No. 7214 mentions that "one of the symbols of the invading Ukrainian government was the attempt to use the letters 'Z' and 'V'".
Preamble to the Bill.
Subsequently, in the first chapter of the official articles, the act defines the concept of "symbolic symbols used by Russia against Ukraine" as "the Latin letters 'Z'V', which are used as symbols of invasion of Ukraine, in accordance with the characteristics laid down in Chapter II, Section V, of this Act".
Chapter I defines "symbolic symbols used by Russia against Ukraine".
Next, in chapter II, the act clarifies the prohibition conditions for the letters "Z" and "V" in Section IV, Article I, including "the use of the Latin letters 'Z'V' alone (without reasonable context, or in the case of justification for aggression against Ukraine or any other military force)", and the Cyrillic letters "3", "C", "B", "Φ", etc., which use these letters alone.
Chapter II, Section 4,1) prohibits the use of the Latin letters "Z" and "V" and their corresponding Cyrillic letters alone under certain conditions.
Chapter II, Section V of Act No. 7214 sets out the specific circumstances of the illegal use of relevant symbolic symbols in Ukraine. Chapter III of the Act stipulates that "a person who violates the requirements of this Law shall be liable under Ukrainian law, civil, administrative, administrative and economic and criminal liability". ”
Above: Chapter II, Section V, specifies the context in which the relevant symbolic symbols were used in Violation of The Chinese Original Text;
In summary, in response to Russia's use of the letters "Z" and "V" as war symbols and war propaganda in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada passed a bill on April 1 prohibiting the propaganda of "Russian armed aggression" in Ukraine, including the prohibition of the use of letters such as "Z" and "V" that appear to be symbolic of invasion in Ukraine, and their corresponding Cyrillic letters. However, it should be made clear that the prohibition of the letters "Z" and "V" provided for in Act 7214 has specific circumstances and restrictions on its application, and the use of the letters "Z" and "V" outside of the circumstances specified in the Act is not suspected of being illegal.
As the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine intensified, some countries that supported Ukraine, such as Latvia and some states in Germany, also issued laws banning the above two symbols, and some commercial companies also participated in the ban on related symbols. For example, the German bread brand Backhaus Zoller announced on its official website that the brand has been using the "Z" logo on bread, but since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, "Z" has unfortunately been attached a very negative meaning, in order to prevent customers from having to face vague symbolic meaning and related negative associations when buying bread, the brand decided not to use the logo on bread for the time being.
Editor-in-Charge: Zheng Shujing
Proofreader: Yan Zhang