Flora camouflage

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Flora camouflage
Flora camouflage pattern
Type	Military camouflage pattern
Place of origin	Russian Federation
Service history
In service	1998-2011
Used by	See Users
Wars	Second Chechen War Russo-Georgian War Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation War in Donbas

Flora (Russian: Флора, sometimes erroneously called VSR-98, which stands for Vooruzhennyye sily Rossii or Russian Armed Forces 1998.)^[1] is a military camouflage pattern formerly used by the Russian Armed Forces.

The pattern has some design similarities with the Butan and Tiger stripe camo.^[2]

Flora came as a replacement for the "Barvikha" camouflage - the name of the R&D program. The pattern did not have an official name, so popular nicknames like "vertikalka" (vertical), berezka (birch), VSR-93 and so on appeared.^[3]

Flora was adopted into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in 1998.^[2]

The camo was last seen with claimed pro-Moscow Crimean auxiliaries during the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation^[4] and with some Russian troops in the War in Donbass.^[5]

Flora is optimised for an environment typical of central Russia and is effective at silhouette dissolution.^[6] Because of the characteristic stripes, "Flora" was nicknamed "Arbuznyj" (watermelony; арбузный) camouflage.

The overall color scheme can vary widely depending on the fabric used by the manufacturer.^[7]

"Flora" consists of the green Flora pattern and the Mountain Flora pattern, which has dark yellow, sand or khaki color.^[8]

• Belarus: Replaced by EMR.^[9]
• Russia: Formerly used by all branches of Russian Armed Forces.^[10] Replaced by EMR by 2011.^[11][12] However, some are still used by military educational institutes,^[2] Russian soldiers in parades^[13] and in Ukraine.^[5]
• Tajikistan: Adopted EMR to replace Flora.^[14]

• Donetsk People's Republic^[15]
• Luhansk People's Republic^[16]

• Crowther, Edward (2022). War in Ukraine: Volume 1: Armed Formations of the Donetsk People's Republic, 2014-2022. Helion and Company. ISBN 978-1915070661.
• Crowther, Edward (2023). War in Ukraine: Volume 3: Armed Formations of the Luhansk People’s Republic, 2014–2022. Helion and Company. ISBN 978-1804512173.
• Galeotti, Mark (2019). Armies Of Russia's War In Ukraine. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1472833440.
• Galeotti, Mark (2017). The Modern Russian Army 1992–2016. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1472819086.
• Larson, Eric H. (2021). Camouflage: International Ground Force Patterns, 1946–2017. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 9781526739537.