Flag of Novorossiya

Battle flag

The battle flag appears to be based on the naval jack of the Russian Federation. Aleksandr Chalenko, who worked as a political journalist in Kiev, described the flag and explained its symbolism in an item published by Izvestia on 20 March 2014:

"It's a red flag with a blue Saint Andrew's cross. The flag of the Russian Navy. Of the Navy, which played a prominent military role in the emergence and establishment of the historical Novorossiya."

The flag bears a strong, striking resemblance to that of the Confederate States of America's navy jack and battle flag. However, Pavliv explains that he had simply stumbled upon the flag online somewhere, and that the leader of the New Russia Party, Pavel Gubarev, later picked it up. Gubarev has since stated that the inspiration for the flag came from "banners used by Cossacks who reclaimed the New Russian territories from Tatars and Turks for Russia in the 18th century"; however according to Alexey Eremenko of the Moscow Times, no Cossacks ever used a flag resembling the one chosen.

On 15 May 2014 the Russian on-line newspaper Vzglyad noted that the then Governor of the Donetsk People's Republic, Pavel Gubarev, had announced the start of voting for a flag of the proposed state of Novorossiya. As of 11 July 2014 the Novorossiya website invites its readers to vote for one of eleven proposed flag designs for New Russia - with Option 1 the red-blue Saint Andrew's saltire.

Following the proposition of the white-yellow-black tricolour as the national flag, the saltire was then adopted as the battle flag of the republic, while a variant with the coat of arms is in use as de facto national flag since.

State flag

Each of the member states also have national flags of their own, both sporting pan-Slavic colours, and bearing resemblances to the flags of Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Donetsk People's Republic

The flag of the Donetsk People's Republic is based on the flag of Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic. The black is commonly thought to represent the Black Sea or the coal industry in the Donbass region. The red is thought to represent freedom and the blue is thought to represent water. The flag also features the coat of arms of the republic in the centre. The flag features the words "Donetsk People's Republic" (Донецкая Народная Республика) in Russian. The previous flag of the Donetsk People Republic was identical to the flag of the Donetsk Republic but did not feature the words "Donetsk Republic" (Донецкая Республика). The flag used by the Donetsk Republic organisation is near identical, but features the words "Donetsk Republic" (Донецкая Республика) in Russian. This flag appears to be more prominently used than that of the state, even appearing on ballot boxes.

Lugansk People's Republic

Not much is known about the flags of the Luhansk People's Republic. The first flag featured a similar design to the flag used by the Donetsk People's Republic, the main differences being that the top stripe was light blue or cyan instead of black, it featured a different coat of arms, and that it contained the words "Luhansk Republic" (Луганская Республика) in Russian. The second was adopted at some point in October, with an abbreviation of the state's local name replacing the aforementioned text. On November 2, 2014, a new flag was adopted that was similar to the previous flags but lacked the coat of arms and had a brighter red stripe.

Pro-Russian separatist movement in Ukraine

Flags of pro-Russian separatist movement in Ukrainian regions that were created during the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine (Russian military intervention in Ukraine (2014–present)).