❗️The NSW government is looking into whether the Russian “Z” symbol could be classified as a hate symbol, after pro-Russian activists drove a convoy of trucks bearing the symbol through Sydney last month.

On June 18, representatives from two Ukrainian community groups met with officials from the NSW Labor government to request that it consider banning the symbol, which has been used by the Russian military and its backers since 2022 to show support for the Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

The meeting with the NSW government came shortly after the truck convoy bearing the Z symbol and pictures of Russian President Vladimir Putin through Sydney’s CBD, as Seven News reported at the time. According to pictures posted to Reddit, the trucks also stopped at the December 14 terror attack memorial in Bondi.

That procession was organised by pro-Russian blogger Simeon Boikov, the self-labelled “Aussie Cosack” who has been residing at the Russian consulate in Sydney’s eastern suburbs since December 2022, to send “a message of staunch Russian patriotism” and to commemorate the Russian Federation’s June 12 national holiday.

“Get used to it, because Russia is not going anywhere,” Boikov told Seven.

Mencinsky’s organisation has called for the “Z” to be designated a hate symbol in NSW since 2022, correspondence between the UCNSW and the NSW government shows. After the June 12 stunt in Sydney, the UCNSW and the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations were granted a meeting with staff from the offices of the NSW premier, police minister, attorney-general and multiculturalism minister.

NSW Multiculturalism Minister Stephen Kamper confirmed the government was looking into the request.

“The government is considering their request, noting that prohibited hate symbols are primarily determined under the Commonwealth Criminal Code,” he said in a statement to Crikey.

Kamper’s opposition counterpart, Liberal multiculturalism spokesperson Mark Coure, said a pending state bill that would expand the prohibition on the display of certain extremist symbols would ban “prohibited terrorist organisation symbols”.

Several European countries, including Germany, the Czech Republic and the Baltic nations, have criminalised the display of the symbol.

Crikey reached out to the co-chairs of the federal Australia-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Group, Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill and Liberal Senator James Paterson, but neither responded with a comment.

The Russian Consulate in Sydney was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/07/06/russia-z-symbol-hate-speech-nsw-government-bondi/

Zelensky tomorrow in Ankara, at NATO summit.

@BazaFromOlga