Can't defeat them with warfare? Enslave them with propaganda. Amidst all that's been happening with Ukraine and Putin, somewhere what's been happening in Russia has been overshadowed. Simply put, it's going full fascist.
Russian authorities launched a propaganda, largely centred around controlling the truth, to gain support for its invasion of Ukraine and unfortunately, they're getting lots of it. For those whose social media feeds have been inundated with people wearing Z on their clothes or cars, it's just a manifestation of that support.
Who is wearing Z on their sleeves?
More importantly, what does it mean? Twitter user and Galina Starovoitova fellow Kamil Galeev, explains in a post, "Z is a letter that Russian Military are putting on their vehicles departing to Ukraine. Some interpret Z as 'Za pobedy' (for victory). Others, as Zapad (West). Anyway, this symbol invented just a few days ago became a symbol of new Russian ideology and national identity."
Unfortunately, this has found a lot of supporters with many Russians putting 'Z' on their cars, that's totally voluntarily with most likely nobody forcing them. "Business owners put Z showing their support of invasion on their trucks," the thread continues with visuals of many cars, other vehicles and people supporting and sporting Z.
Not just that, gory images of Russian military making Z letters out of badges of killed Ukrainian soldiers also made its way to social media. Some images showed terminally ill children from hospice and their parents making a Z formation too. Ethnic Russians in the name of Russian orthodox church are cheering for the invasion. They feel Russia has become great again, they feel proud.
Information terrorism?
The fact that Russia has been simultaneous in launching missiles in Ukraine and social media offensive back home, is a known fact. A network of pro-Kremlin propaganda channels has been at it since the war started, making Ukrainian government respond to the disinformation, as "information terrorism." Ukrainian government flagged many English-language channels as "dangerous."
How did the turnaround happen?
When the invasion or "special military operation" started, the West and the entire world was made to believe that Russians did not support the invasion. Then trickled in social media news of state controlled information, and how Russia did not let Russians know about the invasion. From this to the turnaround and Z signboards generously dotting the country.
As per a report from Cyabra, an Israeli tech company that works at detecting and researching on disinformation, there's been an exponential increase in suspicious accounts spreading anti-Ukrainian sentiment. The provoked sentiments are stirred up not via direct political messages but through indiscreet army of trolls and bots. State-controlled media aims at dividing western audiences, via unassuming Tik-tok videos featuring a harmless cat, a cute puppy, or soldier serving, both humour and Russian nationalism.
Putin took a decision to start this war. But he got a wide support of the Russian people. Nobody's forcing them to participate in these shows of support, they could totally skip it. But they cheer. They cheer, because they feel good, they feel proud. Russia became great again pic.twitter.com/XkFHTlDq6m
— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) March 6, 2022
