The Slatest

“New Russia” Separatist Flag Looks a Lot Like Another Famous Secessionist Flag

The “New Russia” flag next to a statue of Lenin in Donetsk.

Photo by Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images

NBC reports that a single “New Russia” flag is “slowly replacing” the individual flags of various pro-Russian Ukrainian separatist groups. The flag of New Russia, or Novorossiya, has been around for a few months; it’s pictured above in a photo from July. And it looks a lot like another flag that you may associate with armed rebellion:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day in South Carolina in 2008.

Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images

The Moscow Times reports that similarities to the Confederate flag are apparently not intentional. They located the Ukrainian insurgency supporter credited with introducing the design; he says he merely found it—in the Times’ words—“online somewhere.” And in such a manner is the course of history determined.