When
Byelorussia and
Ukraine became the founding members of the
United Nations in 1945, all of their flags were red with only small markings in upper left corners and needed distinct flags for each other. In February 1947, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a resolution calling for the Soviet republics to adopt new flags, which each of its republics were recommended to develop and adopt new national flags. So they expressed the idea of a union state, asked to use the symbols of the State flag of the Soviet Union, such as the gold
hammer and sickle and the
red star, as well as maintain the predominance of red color on the flag of the Union republics. National, historical and cultural features of each republic was instructed to express the other colors and the order of their location, as well as the location based on the national emblem or coat of arms. After competitions for the best projects from 1949 to 1954 the new flags of the 16 republics were developed and adopted. The authorities in Ukraine and Byelorussia were the first to adopt the flags on 5 July 1950, and 25 December 1951, respectively. All others followed suit between 1952 and 1953 with the last republic, the Russian SFSR, adopted the flag on 9 January 1954. With the exception of Russia, all republics adopted at least one horizontal stripe in a non-red color, whereas the RSFSR chose a simple light-blue vertical stripe instead. Following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union on 26 December 1991, only
Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan (without hammer and sickle),
Turkmenistan, and
Ukraine (with the blue and yellow flag already
de facto restored as co-flag) retained their Soviet republic flags as independent states until the new official flags were adopted in 1992. Since 1995 (current version adopted in 2012)
Belarus retains its old
Soviet-era flag with only minor changes. Their final versions prior to re-adoption of the non-Soviet national flags were as follows: ==Flags of other republics==