"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.... It took only a week for the 'Z' to become the symbol of the new Russian totalitarianism. But totalitarian symbols are usually created at the top. The red flag and the swastika—the two main visual symbols of twentieth-century totalitarianism—emerged from years of ideological, aesthetic, and even spiritual movement-shaping. The 'Z' is a different animal, a ready-made symbol picked up by a society that has already reconstituted itself as totalitarian."

Writes Masha Gessen in "'Z' Is the Symbol of the New Russian Politics of Aggression/In the days following the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, the letter came to stand for devotion to the state, murderous rage, and unchecked power" (The New Yorker).