Russia

What the source says

Referenced, awaiting primary-source review

De facto restored 22 August 1991; colours standardised 11 December 1993. [Imperial-era, historical:] white symbolized nobility and frankness, blue faithfulness, honesty, impeccability, and chastity, red courage, generosity, and love. Peter decided to model Russia's naval flag after [the Dutch banner] after a Dutch frigate arrived in 1694 with the Dutch red, white, and blue banner.

(r1) Flag of Russia (Wikipedia (English)), read on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page.

Referenced, not verified: a secondary work states this, and the document that constitutes the flag has not been read for this entry. What the marks mean.

Colors and meaning

White(r1) #FFFFFF
In an unofficial interpretation, nobility and frankness(r1)
Blue(r1) #0039A6
Faithfulness, honesty and chastity(r1)
Red(r1) #D52B1E
Courage, generosity and love(r1)

Symbolism and history(r1)

A plain white-blue-red horizontal tricolor that Peter the Great modelled on the Dutch red-white-blue banner after a Dutch frigate arrived in 1694, restored in 1991 and standardised in 1993 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Most similar flags

The 6 closest of the 194 other national flags, ranked by a similarity index computed from the flag images themselves. The number is that index, 0–100 — not a claim that the two flags are “X% identical”.

Computed at build time: each flag is rasterised to 64x48, and the score is 0.55 × colour overlap + 0.45 × structure. A different weighting would rank these differently. How the index works.

References — not verification

(r1) Referenced to Flag of Russia (Wikipedia (English)) on 2026-07-17. States the adoption year, which colors the flag has, what the colors mean and the symbolism and history on this page. The passage it states them in is quoted at the top of this entry.

Further reading: Flag of Russia on Wikipedia