The flag of Uzbekistan consists of three horizontal azure, white and green bands separated by two thin red fimbriations, with a crescent moon and twelve stars at the canton. Adopted in 1991 to replace the flag of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR), it has been the flag of the Republic of Uzbekistan since the country gained independence in that same year. The design of the present flag was partly inspired by the former one.
The flag of Ukraine is a banner of two equally sized horizontal bands of blue and yellow (Constitution of Ukraine, Article 20). The top represents sky and the yellow represents wheat. The combination of blue and yellow as a symbol of Ukrainian lands comes from the flag of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia used in the 12th century. As a national flag, the blue and yellow bicolour has been officially used since the 1848 Spring of Nations, when it was hoisted over the Lviv Rathaus. It was officially adopted as a state flag for the first time in 1918 by the short-lived West Ukrainian People’s Republic and subsequently used by the Ukrainian People’s Republic. When Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, the flag was outlawed and, before 1949, there was no official state flag until adoption of the red-azure flag of the Ukrainian SSR. The blue and yellow flag was provisionally adopted for official ceremonies in September 1991 following Ukrainian independence, before finally officially being restored on 28 January 1992 by the parliament of Ukraine.
The flag of Turkmenistan features a white crescent (symbol of Islam) and five stars representing the five regions of the country. Placed upon a green field is a symbolic representation of the country’s famous carpet industry. It was introduced as the flag of Turkmenistan on September 27, 1992 to replace the Soviet-era flag which consisted of a red background with two light blue bars in the middle. The modified version with a 2:3 ratio was adopted on January 24, 2001. State Flag and Constitution Day is celebrated on 18 May.[1]
The blue, red, and yellow tricolor of Moldova is identical to the flag of Romania, reflecting the two countries’ national and cultural affinity. On Moldova’s flag, the yellow stripe is charged with the national arms. Like the Romanian coat of arms, the Moldovan arms, adopted in 1990, features a dark golden eagle holding an Orthodox Christian cross in its beak. Instead of a sword, the eagle is holding an olive branch, symbolizing peace. The blue and red shield on the eagle’s chest is charged with the traditional symbols of Moldova: an aurochs’ head, flanked by a rose in dexter and a crescent in sinister and having a star between its horns, all of gold. These two national flags are also very similar to the flags of Chad and Andorra, which are all based on vertical stripes of blue, yellow, and red.
The flag of Lithuania consists of a horizontal tricolor of yellow, green, and red. It was adopted on 25 April 1918 during Lithuania’s first period of independence (in the 20th century) from 1918 to 1940, which ceased with the occupation first by Soviet Russia and Lithuania’s annexation into the Soviet Union, and then by Germany (1941–1944). During the post-World War II Soviet occupation, from 1945 until 1989, the Soviet Lithuanian flag consisted first of a generic red Soviet flag with the name of the republic, then changed to the red flag with white and green bands at the bottom.
Though officially adopted in 1923, the Latvian flag was in use as early as the 13th century. The red colour is sometimes described as symbolizing the readiness of the Latvians to give the blood from their hearts for freedom and their willingness to defend their liberty. An alternative interpretation, according to one legend, is that a Latvian leader was wounded in battle, and the edges of the white sheet in which he was wrapped were stained by his blood. The white stripe may stand for the sheet that wrapped him.