As pictures and videos of the Russian army invading Ukraine come out, you may have noticed that most of them are carrying painted recognition markings on their hulls.   We thought you might be interested in what they represent.

First, it is interesting that the Russians are even doing this. In the U.S. military, most of our fighting vehicles and helicopters are equipped with a radio-based combat ID system so that we can identify friendly forces and not shoot them up.  Apparently, Russian tanks, trucks, helicopters, and armored combat vehicles do not, so they are stuck with visual recognition signals to sort them out from the Ukrainian military which is mostly using the same equipment as the Russians.

The Letter “V” represents the Russian Marines

The Letter “Z” represents units in the Eastern Military District

The Letter “Z” in a square represents the Southern Military District (Crimea)

The Letter “O” represents units from Belarus

The Letter “X” represents the forces of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Putin installed warlord of Russia’s Chechnya region.

The Letter “A” represents Russian Special Forces(SSO) like Spetznaz in its various operational units.

You can read more of our coverage of the Invasion of Ukraine here,

The Russian offensive appears to have stalled and Chechen Assassins(Yeah, we know) are on the hunt for Zelensky

A Russian Recon Platoon was displaced from blocking position at a crossroads outside Kharkiv. We have an exclusive video of the aftermath and what appears to be the murder of a civilian.

Here is more exclusive video of two young Russian POWs captured by Ukraine. They claim they had no idea where they were.

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