Kai Katonina, a Berlin-based user experience designer, and a Russia-based art manager with the pseudonym "Fish Sounds" (Звуки Рыб, Zvuki Ryb),[2][3] also known as "AssezJeune",[8] are each credited with having created the flag.

[2][5][16][15][4] The white-blue-white flag has been used at anti-war protests in Tbilisi, Georgia,[18] Berlin, Germany,[19][20] Sofia, Bulgaria,[21] Bern, Switzerland,[22] Limassol, Cyprus,[7][20] Prague, Czech Republic,[4][23] The Hague, Netherlands,[24] and Riga, Latvia.

[4][20][26] On 31 March 2022, the head of the Duma commission on foreign interference, Vasily Piskarev, appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office to ban the white-blue-white Russian flag as extremist, since "this symbolism is used in protests against the military operation in Ukraine not only in Russia, but also in other countries".

[31] On 21 August 2022, the manifesto of a hitherto unknown partisan group within Russia, National Republican Army (NRA) (Russian: Национальная республиканская армия (НРА)), endorsed the adoption of the white-blue-white flag.

[33][37][38] On 22 May 2023, the Freedom of Russia Legion posted videos showing the flag being lifted with balloons flying in the center of Moscow following the Belgorod Oblast incursion, which they claimed credit for.