A banner on the Federal Drug Control Service building has mixed up the order of the Russian flag's colors.
The banner, bearing the caption "The Federal Drug Control Service — 10 years in service to the Fatherland," features a long fluttering flag, on which the colors should be ordered red-blue-white, from the bottom up, but are instead ordered blue-red-white.
"I'm suddenly interested, exactly which Fatherland does the Federal Drug Control Service serve? Russia has a completely different flag," blogger Vasily Maximov wrote on Sunday.
The didn't admitted to any mistake. "This error occurred solely due to a gust of wind — the banner just turned over, there's no evil intent in this. I don't understand why people are paying so much attention to this incident," a spokesman for the service told RIA Novosti.
However, while a flipped banner could produce a mirror reflection of the flag (white-blue-red), changing the color of the flag's middle stripe would be quite a feat even for the gustiest of winds.
The banner was removed Sunday evening. It had been hanging since the agency's 10th anniversary on March 11, so the Federal Drug Control Service decided it was time to take it down, the spokesman said.
