Ukraine Unveils New Camo Uniforms: From Soviet Green to MM-25
Also, what's with the reflective armbands?
You might be surprised, but the most exciting part of basic training in the US Army infantry wasn’t shooting at the range, hand-to-hand combat training, or anything so “tacti-cool.”
Growing up in Texas, I had plenty of time to shoot guns and get in fights.
No… For me, at least, the most exciting moment was when I was issued my Woodland battle dress uniform, or BDUs.
I remember putting on the uniform and sprinting with a few other recruits straight to the tree line just outside the reception battalion at Fort Benning, Georgia. Why the tree line? We wanted to know if the camo worked!
Looking back as the grizzled, forty-year-old version of Wes, that memory seems silly. But we were genuinely euphoric about a textile.
The evolution of military uniforms, and camouflage more specifically, has always fascinated me. So, I take notice when our Ukrainian allies test new camo patterns based on their experience fighting Russia.
A New Pattern Enters the Ring
In June 2025, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry unleashed the MM‑25, the latest tantalizing offering in its evolving camouflage catalog. This isn’t a wholesale replacement for the MM‑14 pixel pattern that’s been standard since 2014.
Rather, it’s an additional option… a tactical upgrade, born from countless frontline requests and specifically championed by General Oleksandr Syrskyi. The goal is straightforward: improve concealment in complex terrain, without disrupting existing production lines.
The Central Logistics Development Directorate wasted no time updating fabric specifications and sparked immediate interest from more than ten domestic manufacturers.
To kick things off, the Ministry is procuring 20,000 items in the new pattern for trial production. That will allow commanders to field test the uniforms under real combat conditions and give Ukrainian textile makers a chance to prove they can match both demand and quality standards.
Looks Like MultiCam… Because It Mostly Is
If you’ve ever seen MultiCam in action, MM‑25 will feel eerily familiar. MultiCam was our (the US military’s) primary camo pattern in the latter half of the Global War on Terror. You’d know it if you saw it.
It’s that same flowing, terrain-agnostic look, designed to make you disappear whether you’re in mixed green or brown fields. But Tech Advisor Dana Yarova warns that Ukraine may be falling for a mirage.
Soldiers rave about MultiCam not because of the pixels, but because the fabric breathes, holds up, and doesn’t become a swamp after 48 hours in the field. The danger, she says, is that recoloring existing material doesn’t address the very real problems of wear, comfort, and longevity.
Current fabric is comparatively cheap and locally available; replicating true MultiCam-level textiles means a complex retooling process that only one factory in the country can manage, and even then, not for another year.
The buzz around MM‑25 might be camouflage envy rather than a capability upgrade.
There’s also a deeper layer to choosing MM‑25 over MM‑14 or olive drab. It signals which units are considered elite.
Special forces, military intelligence, and reconnaissance units have long opted for a MultiCam-style look, not just because it hides better, but because it sends a message.
At the contact line, pixel is ground troops, MultiCam is the specialists. Union-style armbands, reflective patches, and nods to different gear systems all carry a similar code: “I’m not just another rifleman.”
As Anti-Corruption Council head Yurii Hudymenko points out, “it’s both functional and status”.
Ukrainian Camo: A Textile Evolution from Soviet Past to War‑Driven Innovation
To appreciate MM‑25, we have to start with where Ukraine’s camo genealogy begins: Soviet-era TTsKO cerulean birch, TTsKO tristal, and Soviet oak leaf patterns. Many of these designs persisted well into the 1990s, thanks to Ukraine’s robust textile factories transitioning from Soviet control.
Unique color variants emerged, keeping Ukrainian uniforms distinct.
By the late 1990s and early 2000s, new patterns appeared: adapted desert versions, US-style woodland copies, and urban police patterns. Eventually, in 2013, Ukraine introduced MM‑14, a digital pixel pattern inspired by Western camo, something between blurred contours and scattered squares.
In case you were wondering, the US Army pixel pattern, whose nomenclature is ACU for Army Combat Uniform, is likely the worst uniform in the history of the service. I would rather wear Vietnam-era fatigues than look like a pixelated Ghost Recon video game reject.
Still, the Ukrainians felt the same way because soldiers continuously sought better camouflage; patterns like “Predator” or Varan emerged from private firms, green-toad or sand-toad versions meant for dense foliage or arid zones.
Simultaneously, boutique designs like MaWka (with its multi-layer reflection zones) or flecktarn-inspired police variants began making the gear racks more eclectic.
Post‑2014, and especially after the full-scale Russian invasion, supply chains became chaotic. Commercial surplus entered the fray: German flecktarn, British DPM, American Multicam, and desert DPM.
Special units assembled whatever worked. That disordered mix reflected the honesty of the situation: gear adapted to the needs of defense, not bureaucracy.
By the way, if you want to drink from the firehose of Ukraine’s camo history, there’s an entire wiki devoted to it.
Why Ukrainian Soldiers Still Wear Reflective Armbands
No conversation about Ukrainian camo would be complete without discussing the ubiquitous reflective armbands seen on both friend and foe.
In my mind, reflective armbands are a paradox in modern warfare. On one hand, they actively undermine camouflage. On the other, in Ukraine’s all-encompassing war, they’ve become a lifeline.
When I was stateside during the War on Terror, we made fun of reflective belts; bright, glaring Velcro monstrosities we would begrudgingly don for safety on airfields. It was necessary there, but entirely unsuited for combat.
So, it wasn’t a surprise when Ukraine’s veterans raised eyebrows at frontline footage showing soldiers wearing yellow or blue bands over their camo. It felt absurd until you realized that identification has become a matter of survival. Because here’s the thing about “friendly” fire: It’s not very friendly.
That’s where bands come in. Amid the fog of battle, especially when equipment from East and West is shared by both sides, visual clarity is vital.
Yellow and blue armbands mimic the national flag; yellow is often worn by regular, discipline-trained troops, and blue by volunteer defenders. This distinction, even if unofficial, subtly reflects capability. Green occasionally marks police. When stores run dry, soldiers improvise with duct tape or whatever’s available… pragmatism over prestige.
On the Russian side, white bands are common in DPR/LPR units, while others use red or Saint George’s ribbon colors. In such a visually chaotic conflict zone, think shared uniforms, identical weapons, and overlapping kits; those bands can mean the difference between identifying a comrade or sending a grenade into friendly lines.
If camo is about blending into terrain, armbands are about standing out to allies. This isn’t nostalgia for the colorful uniforms of the Napoleonic wars. It’s the brutal arithmetic of total war.
When virtually every citizen may carry a rifle, and pilots, volunteers, and conscripts fight side by side, making “who’s who” obvious is not vanity; it’s necessity.
So yes, camouflage matters, especially with drones overhead and optics everywhere. But today’s battlefield demands more than concealment. It demands quick recognition, unity under fire, and the subtle messaging of those humble armbands.
Then there’s the comfort issue. No matter how cool your camo looks, if you’re going to be wearing these uniforms for long periods of time between washings, they need to be both comfortable and durable.
Most standard-issue military uniforms worldwide are designed by committees more concerned with budgets and bureaucracy than the human skin that has to live in them for 18-hour shifts in a trench.
Ukraine’s MM-14 “pixel” camo, while serviceable in terms of concealment, has long been criticized by soldiers for being too heavy, too hot, and too poorly ventilated. As one Ukrainian servicemember put it, “You rot in it after 48 hours in a dugout.” Lovely.
That’s one of the reasons why Ukrainian soldiers, especially special operations units and frontline veterans, started buying their own gear. They turned to commercial options like MultiCam, not because it looked “cooler,” but because it didn’t chafe, didn’t soak through like a sponge, and didn’t make your armpits feel like a war crime.
In combat, comfort isn’t exactly a frivolity; it’s the difference between maintaining combat effectiveness and becoming a liability.
Comfortable uniforms also reduce injuries like rashes, sores, and heat-related illness, which aren’t exactly headline-grabbing but can sideline soldiers just as effectively as a bullet. Plus, when your clothes move with you instead of against you, you’re quieter, more agile, and less exhausted at the end of a 20-kilometer patrol.
This is precisely why Ukraine’s push for MM-25, a MultiCam-style pattern with huge potential upgrades in fabric quality, is so important. Not just for visual concealment, but for wearability.
If the MOD listens to its troops and actually improves the material instead of just recoloring the same uncomfortable base, it would be a big win for common sense in wartime procurement.
Because let’s face it: the Russian artillery doesn’t care what pattern you’re wearing. But your skin, your morale, and your ability to operate in a trench full of freezing mud? They care a whole lot.
Слава Україні!
I published this article originally at Medium behind the paywall. After a week of exclusivity, I brought it here for my free subscribers.
I read your posts with great admiration for your brilliant descriptive language and detailed coverage. Thank you. Slava Ukraine.
Excellent overview, and I wish Crye Precision would set up a satellite factory in Kiev. A small correction- the old U.S. digital camo is UCP (Universal Camouflage Pattern) while the design itself is the ACU (Army Combat Uniform). ACU = pretty good, UCP = very much not good.