Since 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Numerous war crimes were committed in these territories. In February 2022 Russia announced and started a full-scale military intervention into Ukraine, justifying it by perfectly ultranationalist pretexts. The academic definition of fascism (palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism) is fully applicable to Russian state ideology. Putin’s speeches are full of tropes that have already appeared in Hitler’s rhetoric. Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti openly called for ‘the solution of the Ukrainian question’.

Russian military intervention is genocidal. Residential areas, schools, kindergartens, maternity wards are attacked indiscriminately by cluster munitions and MLRS. Thousands of civilians are dead in a week. Russian businesses and major officials already face large sanctions. However, the war is going on not only on the battlefield, but also in social media. Hate towards Ukrainians, propaganda of Russian military aggression and misinformation are widely spread online.

As Z symbol is being actively used by Russian propaganda and by Russian military to mark their vehicles, we urge Instagram platform to do the following:

- to recognize Z in the Russian context as a hate symbol promoting violence and to treat the content with it accordingly;
- to suspend all state-sponsored media accounts and personal accounts of their staff.