Babushka Z - the Kremlin's unlikely propaganda icon
An elderly Ukrainian woman brandishing a red Soviet flag has become the unlikely face of Kremlin propaganda after a video of her encounter with Ukrainian soldiers went viral.
"I am just a peasant woman. I don't understand why I've become a celebrity."
The woman who has become known as Babushka Z - "grandmother" in Russian, the Z referring to the symbol often painted on armoured vehicles - was gobsmacked when we showed her photos of her newfound fame. "I've never seen any of it," she says.
The video shows her walking towards two Ukrainian soldiers holding a red Soviet flag.
The soldiers say they have arrived to help and offer her a bag of food. Then they take the flag off her, throw it on the ground and stamp on it. So the woman, feeling insulted, gives the food back to them. "My parents died for that flag in World War Two," she says, indignantly.
For the Kremlin, this was propaganda gold dust. They saw this woman as a rare example of a Ukrainian who regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union and considered the Russians to be liberators. Within days, her image - a throwback to a stereotypical peasant woman of the Soviet era in her orthodox headscarf, felt boots and thick skirt - started to appear everywhere, from Moscow and Siberia to Sakhalin Island in the far east.
She has now been immortalised in murals, placards, postcards, sculptures and bumper stickers. Songs and poems have been dedicated to her. Russian officials even unveiled a statue of her in Mariupol, the Ukrainian city that has been bombed to the ground. But her story is very different from the image that the Russian media has been painting. She does not support the war. "How can I support my people dying? My grandchildren and great-grandchildren were forced to go to Poland. We live in fear and terror."
For 5 Minutes On, 大象传媒 reporter, Sofia Bettiza, heads to Ukraine to track down "Babushka Z".
Image Credit: 大象传媒 News
