T-shirt - Bavovna!

Бавовна /bavóvna/ is a recently-introduced meme about the current russo-Ukrainian war (2014-current). It is, indeed, a linguistic phenomenon. There are three factors at play here: Throughout recent years, russian propaganda uses various euphemisms and newspeak to diminish the importance of catastrophic events in its controlled territories: terms like "newly available manpower" for "rise in unemployment", "water-soaking" for "flood", "a negative rise of the economic growth" for "economic decline", etc. One of the most used terms is хлопо́к (/xlopók/ - clap, pop) for "explosion". The Ukrainian word for "clap" is also хлопо́к; note the stress on the 2nd syllable. The word хло́пок (/xlópok/ - cotton) has the same spelling, except it has stress on the 1st syllable. The Ukrainian word for "cotton" is бавовна. Like everywhere, russian Internet trolls continue the information war on Ukrainian social media. Most of them do not speak Ukrainian, but they pretend as Ukrainians in order to deceive