Z Symbol
The Latin script, Latin-script letter Z ( rus, зет, p=zɛt, r=zet) is one of several symbols (including "V" and "O") painted on military vehicles of the Russian Armed Forces involved in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It is speculated that the Z helps task forces distinguish themselves from other forces. Subsequently, it also became a militarist symbol used in Russian propaganda and by Russian civilians as a sign of support for the invasion. Outside Russia, the symbol has been banned from public display in various countries. The "Z" symbol has been pejoratively called a zwastika or zwaztika, in reference to the Nazi Germany, Nazi ''Swastika#Swastika as distinct from hakenkreuz debate, swastika'', or pejoratively in Russian and Ukrainian as "ziga" (Russian: зига) in reference to ''Sieg Heil''. Some Ukrainian officials and commenters on the Internet also started referring to Russia as Ruzzia or RuZZia (russian: Роzzия, link=no or ; uk, Роzzія, link=no or ), ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2022 Russian Invasion Of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An estimated 8 million Ukrainians were displaced within their country by late May and 7.8 million fled the country by 8 November 2022, while Russia, within five weeks of the invasion, experienced its greatest emigration since the 1917 October Revolution. Following the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, Russia annexed Crimea, and Russian-backed paramilitaries seized part of the Donbas region of south-eastern Ukraine, which consists of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, sparking a regional war. In March 2021, Russia began a large military build-up along its border with Ukraine, eventually amassing up to 190,000 troops and their equipment. Despite the build-up, denials of plans to invade or attack Ukraine were issued by various Russian gove ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Open Democracy
openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage democratic debate" around the world. The founders of the website have been involved with established media and political activism. The platform has been funded by grants from organisations such as Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, as well as by receiving direct donations from readers. History openDemocracy was founded in 2000 by Anthony Barnett, David Hayes, Susan Richards and Paul Hilder. First publication began in May 2001. Founder Anthony Barnett, Charter 88 organiser and political campaigner, was the first editor (2001–2005) and Isabel Hilton was editor from 2005 to 2007. She was succeeded in 2010 by Rosemary Bechler, who in turn handed over t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Normandy Landings
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Invasion Stripes
Invasion stripes were alternating black and white bands painted on the fuselages and wings of Allied aircraft during World War II to reduce the chance that they would be attacked by friendly forces during and after the Normandy Landings. Three white and two black bands were wrapped around the rear of a fuselage just in front of the empennage (tail) and from front to back around the upper and lower wing surfaces. After a study concluded that the thousands of aircraft involved in the invasion would saturate and break down the IFF system, the marking scheme was approved on May 17, 1944, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commanding the Allied Expeditionary Air Force. A small-scale test exercise was flown over the OVERLORD invasion fleet on June 1, to familiarise the ships' crews with the markings, but for security reasons, orders to paint the stripes were not issued to the troop carrier units until June 3 and to the fighter and bomber units until June 4. Stripes we ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Friendly Fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while engaging an enemy, long range ranging errors or inaccuracy. Accidental fire not intended to attack enemy/hostile targets, and deliberate firing on one's own troops for disciplinary reasons, is not called friendly fire,Regan, Geoffrey (2002) ''Backfire: a history of friendly fire from ancient warfare to the present day'', Robson Books and neither is unintentional harm to civilian or neutral targets, which is sometimes referred to as collateral damage. Training accidents and bloodless incidents also do not qualify as friendly fire in terms of casualty reporting. Use of the term "friendly" in a military context for allied personnel started during the First World War, often when shells fell short of the targeted enemy. The term ''friendly fire'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Conversation (website)
''The Conversation'' is a network of not-for-profit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a free Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies". The website was launched in Australia in March 2011. The network has since expanded globally with a variety of local editions originating from around the world. In September 2019, ''The Conversation'' reported a monthly online audience of 10.7 million users, and a combined reach of 40 million people when including republication. The site employed over 150 full-time staff as of 2020. Each regional or national edition of '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russian Nationalism
Russian nationalism is a form of nationalism that promotes Russian cultural identity and unity. Russian nationalism first rose to prominence in the early 19th century, and from its origin in the Russian Empire, to its repression during early Bolshevik rule, and its revival in the Soviet Union, it was closely related to pan-Slavism. The definition of Russian national identity within Russian nationalism has been characterized in different ways. In ethnic terms one including asserting that those identified as ethnic Russians are the Russian nation, another is the All-Russian nation concept developed in the Russian Empire that views Russians as having three sub-national groups within it including Great Russians (those commonly identified as ethnic Russians today), Little Russians (Ukrainians), and White Russians ( Belarusians). Russian nationalists have identified Russia as the main successor of the Kievan Rus' and typically view the arising of separate national identities of Bel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russian Alphabet
The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. It comes from the Cyrillic script, which was devised in the 9th century for the first Slavic literary language, Old Slavonic. Initially an old variant of the Bulgarian alphabet, it became used in the Kievan Rusʹ since the 10th century to write what would become the Russian language. The modern Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: twenty consonants (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ), ten vowels (, , , , , , , , , ), a semivowel / consonant (), and two modifier letters or "signs" (, ) that alter pronunciation of a preceding consonant or a following vowel. Letters : An alternative form of the letter El () closely resembles the Greek letter lambda (). Historic letters Letters eliminated in 1917–18 * — Identical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ze (Cyrillic)
Ze (З з; italics: ) is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the voiced alveolar fricative , like the pronunciation of in "zebra". ''Ze is romanized using the Latin letter'' . The shape of Ze is very similar to the Arabic numeral three , and should not be confused with the Cyrillic letter E . History and shape Ze is derived from the Greek letter Zeta (Ζ ζ). In the Early Cyrillic alphabet its name was (''zemlja''), meaning "earth". The shape of the letter originally looked similar to a Greek or Latin letter Z with a tail on the bottom (). Though a majuscule form of this variant () is encoded in Unicode, historically it was only used as caseless or lowercase.Ponomar Project. ''The Complete Character Range for Slavonic Script in Unicode.'' In the Cyrillic numeral system, Zemlja had a value of 7. Medieval Cyrillic manuscripts and Church Slavonic printed books have two variant forms of the letter Zemlja: з and . Only the form was used in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Zeta
Zeta (, ; uppercase Ζ, lowercase ζ; grc, ζῆτα, el, ζήτα, label= Demotic Greek, classical or ''zē̂ta''; ''zíta'') is the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 7. It was derived from the Phoenician letter zayin . Letters that arose from zeta include the Roman Z and Cyrillic З. Name Unlike the other Greek letters, this letter did not take its name from the Phoenician letter from which it was derived; it was given a new name on the pattern of beta, eta and theta. The word ''zeta'' is the ancestor of ''zed'', the name of the Latin letter Z in Commonwealth English. Swedish and many Romanic languages (such as Italian and Spanish) do not distinguish between the Greek and Roman forms of the letter; "''zeta''" is used to refer to the Roman letter Z as well as the Greek letter. Uses Letter The letter ζ represents the voiced alveolar fricative in Modern Greek Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Gl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Daily Express
The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Its sister paper, the ''Sunday Express'', was launched in 1918. In June 2022, it had an average daily circulation of 201,608. The paper rose to become the largest circulation newspaper in the world under Lord Beaverbrook, going from 2 million in the 1930s to 4 million in the 1940s. It was acquired by Richard Desmond's company Northern & Shell in 2000. Hugh Whittow was the editor from February 2011 until he retired in March 2018. In February 2018 Trinity Mirror acquired the ''Daily Express'', and other publishing assets of Northern & Shell, in a deal worth £126.7 million. To coincide with the purchase the Trinity Mirror group changed the name of the company to ''Reach''. Hugh Whittow resigned as editor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |