Russia’s flag is a horizontal tricolour of white, blue, and red in that order. The three equal bands run from top to bottom, creating one of Europe’s best-known national designs.
The combination became associated with Russian maritime power under Peter the Great. A white-blue-red tricolour was used on Russian ships in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and it was adopted as a civil ensign in 1705. The design remained connected with the Russian Empire until the 1917 Revolution, when the Bolsheviks replaced it with Soviet-style red flags.
Russia restored the tricolour in 1991 after the failed August Coup and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its modern specifications, including the 2:3 proportion, were confirmed in 1993. The colours are sometimes given traditional symbolic interpretations—white for nobility or peace, blue for loyalty, and red for courage—but these explanations are not the core identifying feature.
The main visual traps are France, whose blue-white-red bands are vertical, and the Netherlands, whose horizontal bands are red, white, and blue.