Russian Smog Kukla Grey DPM CAMO

The Russian Smog is a copy of the British DPM. The names of this pattern do not mean a single pattern, but a pattern style, with different versions manufactured by different companies and individual factories. So I've taken two individual patterns to show two of the dominant subtypes of the pattern style: plain and stippled.


A copy of British DPM pattern has also been produced commercially, but worn by some MVD Interior Troops as well as the FSB (Federal Security Service). The pattern is known colloquially as Смог (Smog), or Кукла (kukla) (doll) pattern, and there are a number of variations based on the manufacturer and type of fabric.

Also known as Kukla (Russian: Кукла, 'doll') and 'universal camouflage' (Russian: универсальный камуфляж, trans. universal'nyy kamuflyazh), Smog (Russian: Смог) is a good example of one such commercially produced camouflage pattern.

Introduced in 1999 — this date is an estimate, based on the fact that this pattern does not appear in Dennis Desmond's Camouflage Uniforms of the Soviet Union and Russia, 1937 to the Present, which was published in 1998, but appears in the Kompaniya «SPLAV» Katalog 2000/2001 — Smog is a four-colour camouflage, comprising large whorls of earth brown and medium green, and smaller black 'branches', on a khaki background. It is clearly based upon the extremely successful British DPM design although this variant, which was obtained in 2001, lacks the stippling that is characteristic of British DPM. However, a camouflage pattern that appears to be a later version of Smog includes stippling.

Prior to to the advent of CADPAT™, British DPM was usually the winning pattern, in NATO personal concealment competitions. It was very popular with Russia's Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs (VV MVD) during the 1990s and was, therefore, a suitable candidate for imitation.

In Russia, the use of Smog is largely limited to special detachments of the VV MVD, since most commercially manufactured uniforms must be provided by sponsors or purchased by soldiers out of their own pockets. However, it appears that Smog might also be a export item, now. Recent photographs seem to show this camouflage pattern being used by police special operations units in Srbija i Crna Gora ('Serbia and Montenegro').