Russia marks tanks and equipment with a mysterious sign - military experts speculate

Created: 02/21/2022, 22:16

By: Bedrettin Bölükbasi

Russian tanks and other military vehicles near the Ukrainian border have been marked with mysterious symbols.

© Twitter/@RALee85

Most of the Russian tanks on the Ukrainian border have been marked with a mysterious symbol.

Now military experts are puzzled about its meaning.

Munich - In the Ukraine conflict, the deployment of troops from Russia continues.

Moscow continues to transfer large numbers of troops and military equipment to the border with Ukraine.

In the last few days, it has become increasingly noticeable that a large part of Russian tanks and other armored vehicles are marked with a symbol.

Military experts are now trying to uncover the meaning of this symbol.

So far no clear result has been reached.

There are plenty of assumptions, but one in particular stands out.

Ukraine crisis: Russian troops mark tanks with "Z" - possibly used for differentiation

The symbol is a "Z" - a letter that does not exist in the Cyrillic alphabet.

The letter is surrounded by a square.

Photographs of Russian military activity show how the Z symbol was sometimes painted on the back, sometimes on the doors of military vehicles or tanks.

According to military expert Rob Lee, this could be a distinguishing feature for Russian troops.

"It looks like the Russian troops near the border are marking their vehicles with a 'Z' to distinguish their combat units," Lee wrote on Twitter, sharing additional photos of the marked tanks.

However, this could not only be a distinction between individual Russian units, but a feature to distinguish one's own units from Ukrainian units.

With regard to vehicle types, the Ukrainian inventory does not show any particular differences to the Russian inventory.

Both armies also use Soviet-era tanks and vehicles.

Ukraine crisis: Analysts fear bad things because of the "Z" mark - an indication of an offensive

Other analysts agreed with Lee's guess.

"I don't know why so many people think they know what the 'Z' stands for.

I don't know myself, but if I had to say something, I'd say it's a simple symbol to distinguish a battle group.

The task of this group?

Use your imagination," wrote analyst Aric Toler on Twitter.

Analyst Ruslan Leviev agreed.

The mark could be used to prevent accidental fire from allied units.

However, Ruslan added, "But we see a lot of vehicle movement every day and that 'Z' is very rare." hasn't seen the 'Z' either.

We should assume the worst.” Military experts see the fine adjustments, such as the markings on the tanks, which are believed to be “friend-foe identification”, as a clear sign that an offensive against Ukraine is being prepared.