In Putin’s Russia, Unspoken but Very Real Ban on Displaying Ukrainian Colors of Yellow and Blue Together Takes Ever More Absurd Dimensions

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 10 – Since the start of Putin’s expanded invasion of Russia, residents of that country have been detained and then fined if they wear clothes or carry bags that feature both yellow and blue, the two colors of the Ukrainian flag. Now, officials in Moscow’s Kuzminky District have had to change their coat of arms because it had both colors on it.
    Officials in that district explained their action by saying that the two swans also featured on their coat of arms had been “drawn incorrectly” and that what had taken place was nothing more than an effort to correct that (lenta.ru/news/2024/11/05/v-moskovskom-rayone-reshili-smenit-sine-zheltyy-gerb/).
But as Moscow journalist Andrey Kalitin points out, it wasn’t the swans that needed changing  but the colors because the Kremlin can no longer tolerate any display of blue and yellow together lest it appear to be an act in support of Ukraine (t.me/akalitin/526 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6730F86C5C8AE).
The investigative journalist suggests that this is a revival of a medieval practice of banning colors that symbolized the wrong thing as far as those in power were concerned. But he notes that such bans have happened more recently -- including in Hitler’s Germany where the Nazis banned the use of red unless it was shown in combination with white and black.