Vehicle registration plates of Russia

Having a number plate obstructed by snow, mud, paper, or any other tool that makes any of the digits and letters illegible is considered an administrative offense and results in a fine.

To improve legibility of the numbers for Russian cars abroad, only a small subset of Cyrillic characters that look like Latin characters are used (12 letters: А, В, Е, К, М, Н, О, Р, С, Т, У, Х), additionally D was issued on some very early plates.

There are special series (usually numbers starting with A) reserved for government officials (for example, A 001 AA usually belongs to the governor of the region).

The license plates for federal government officials originally had a larger flag instead of the regional code but this type has now been withdrawn as well.

[4] As of 2014, there are new codes for Russian plates in occupied territories; number 82 for the Republic of Crimea and 92 for Sevastopol.

Ukraine, backed by most of the international community, refuses to accept the annexation and continues to assert its right over the peninsula.

[citation needed] After Russia's February 2022 escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russia began issuing license plates for its conquered territories in Ukraine's Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

But this does not fully solve the problem, as the authorities may eventually run out of three-numeral regional codes, and a fourth digit will not fit without changing the standardised layout of the plate.