"Special military operation" (also "special operation," and abbreviated as "SVO") is a euphemism used by the Russian government and pro-Russian sources to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022.

Background 

The use of euphemisms to describe military activities was common in the Soviet Union and in Russia prior to the invasion of Ukraine; this includes:

 Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) as "liberation campaign of the Red Army," then subsequently "combat operations during the reunification of the USSR, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus"
 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968) as "friendly assistance to the fraternal people of Czechoslovakia" (not officially considered a military operation by Russia as of 2023)
 Soviet–Afghan War (1979–1989); at first officially named "the introduction of a limited contingent of Soviet troops into Afghanistan," then later called "combat operations in Afghanistan"
 First Chechen War (1994–1996) as the "operation on the restoration of the constitutional order in Chechnya," and then afterwards as "an armed conflict in the Chechen Republic and in the adjacent territories of the Russian Federation, assigned to the zone of armed conflict"
 Second Chechen War (1999–2009) being described as part of a "counter-terrorist operation on the territory of the North Caucasus region"
 Russo-Georgian War (2008) as a "special peace enforcement operation" for "ensuring the security and protection of citizens of the Russian Federation living in the territories of the Republic of South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia"

According to some observers, such as Russian journalist , the purpose of this terminology is mainly to create a perception that war is more benign than it actually is, by softening the wording in official reports and in the media.

Usage 

In Russian propaganda, the term "special military operation" is the main designation for aggression against Ukraine and is used to replace the definition of "war", which the Russian authorities and state media carefully avoided. On 24 February 2022, 6 hours after the start of the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine, the Russian government tightened censorship by officially requiring the media to use only materials provided by Russian government sources. Subsequently, under pressure from the authorities, many organizations left the country or were closed. The Russian authorities blocked access to a number of Internet resources that refused to comply with the requirements.

In early November 2022, the "rule" was first violated by TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov during a radio broadcast; later on, the events in Ukraine were publicly called “war” by Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov and Margarita Simonyan.

Russian authorities and media try to avoid the term "war" in the context of Ukraine, instead using it in terms like "gas war" or "information war." In addition, "war" is freely used in the context of describing Russia's relations with the Western world.

The term "special military operation" is also widely used in Ukrainian media, but is generally written in quotation marks.

In colloquial speech 
Social anthropologist  noted that as of September 2022, the abbreviation "SVO" was more commonly used instead of "special operation." According to Arkhipova, this is due to the length of the full term, which is inconvenient in speech, and the concealment of the essence of the term in the abbreviation.

Meaning and interpretation 

Strictly speaking, a "special operation" (as defined by organizations like NATO) is a military term for a task that requires specially trained units for an unconventional operation. However, there does not appear to be a formal, nor generally accepted, definition of the term within a Russian military context. This ambiguity was used to hide and distort the true meaning of what an "SVO" would entail, and has been described as an example of "doublespeak." and "doublethink."

Konstantin Gorobets, an associate professor at the University of Groningen, argued that, unlike "war," the term "special military operation" positioned Ukraine as a colony of Russia, denies it equal standing as a sovereign state, and uses the "language of policing." Gorobets says that the implication of the term is imperialistic, "because it assumes that Russia is using force within its own domain, of which Ukraine [in their view] is but a part."

Russian military theorists Vladimir Kvachkov and Viktor Litvinenko expressed the opinion that "special military operation" differs from "war" in its approach to the use of military force – in order to achieve strategic goals, it is necessary to conduct a single combined-arms operation instead of several. Analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth Charles Bartles, and Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation Roger McDermott, believe that such an interpretation of the phrase in Russian military circles does not indicate an underestimation of Russia's responsibility for aggression, but an assessment of military operations in the Russian system of definitions, which differs from the Western one. Thus, "special military operation" in the Russian sense is lower than "war," which is expressed in the conduct of a major but short-term military campaign. According to Bartles and McDermott, this difference gives an idea of how the Russian leadership defines "red lines," "victories" and "defeats" in the context of the conflict, while the words of Kvachkov and Litvinenko indicate recognition of the failure of the "special operation" and the transition of the conflict into a full-fledged war, even by Russian standards, and the use of euphemism is retained only for political reasons.

In popular culture 
Due to its nature as an overt euphemism, the term has become an Internet meme that satirizes Russian propaganda. At the end of 2022, the euphemism won in the nomination "Expression of the Year" of Russia's "Word of the Year" competition (with the Russian word for war () being the overall winner).

The semi-official symbol of the term is the Latin letter "Z."

See also

Analogous phrases

Related topics 

 Credibility gap – a term used to describe U.S. government dishonesty about the Vietnam War
 
 
 La guerre sans nom –  "the war without a name"; what the Algerian War was called in France as it was occurring

Notes

References 

Propaganda in Russia related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Russian invasion of Ukraine in popular culture
Euphemisms