Ukraine

Plates white + blue-yellow strip left (flag colours; old plates: strip hard to see)

Russia: Any blue-yellow → Ukraine.

All coverage Gen3, mostly a RED Google car (± antenna; colour sometimes visible via blur glitch)

The red Gen3 car is almost unique to Ukraine (parts of Belgium have a red long-antenna car). Vs Russia: no red car there, Russia has Gen4/Gen2 (Ukraine never), Russian Gen3 always has an antenna - antenna-less = think Ukraine.

Belgium: Cyrillic + no Gen4/Gen2 → Ukraine; Latin script + Western European infra → Belgium.

Rarer cars: black long-antenna, white long-antenna, grey short-antenna (regional - see below)

Some of Europe's worst roads - potholes, cracks, warped pavement (Russia's are generally better)

Random roadside objects (esp. fences) painted blue-and-yellow

Ukrainian Cyrillic: unique letters Є Ґ І Ї (vs Russian); street = вулиця (вул.), city = місто (м.) (Russian: улица/ул., город/г.)

Russia: і/ї/є or вул. → Ukraine; Ы/Э + ул. → Russia.

Belarus: ў → Belarus.

Bulgaria: Latin transliterations + EU plates → Bulgaria.

Square concrete poles (varied tops, white-painted bottoms) + diagonal support beams; wooden poles w/ concrete base blocks - post-Soviet kit (RU/LT similar)

Russia: Diagonal beams commoner in UA; plates/language decide.

Lithuania: Latin script + EU plates → Lithuania.

Chevrons red w/ white arrows (same in RU/EE); pedestrian signs 3 stripes (also RU/EE/LT); white town-entry signs; B&W-painted guardrails (like Russia)

Soviet apartment blocks of light-grey brick, rundown (Baltic versions better kept); suburbs = fenced brick single-family houses, heavy vegetation, unpaved roads, corrugated roofs

Rural vibe: bad road + flat/slightly hilly + tree line then open fields + no infrastructure + no traffic; almost all coverage = summer; tall poplars common (most of Russia lacks them); ultra-rural tracks near cities exist despite the urban+main-road coverage rule

Coverage map: mostly cities + yellow roads; almost nothing in the SE (except Donetsk) and south of Odesa near Romania

Area codes per oblast (3rd digit 2 = oblast capital); plate letter codes = oblast (non-intuitive, learnable); oblast second-level domains (.te.ua = Ternopil) mostly intuitive

May coverage (yellowish leaf tint) → western half; 2011 autumn coverage in 5 cities: Kyiv/Lviv/Kharkiv (mostly overwritten, white car), Odesa (mostly intact, silver short-antenna car), Donetsk (ONLY 2011, black long-antenna car - red car = never Donetsk)

Carpathians (west): hilly-mountainous, forested, pines, curvy roads; Baltic-pine forests → north near Belarus (flat!); south = warmer, drier, shrubs + open fields; blooming sunflowers → far south + east (Kherson/Mykolaiv/Odesa; T0403 to Nova Kakhovka)

Russian language → east + south (Ы/Э, ул., г.)

Hungarian border area: bilingual/monolingual Hungarian signs + Hungarian-style linear villages (single-storey, orange or diamond-slate roofs)

Car metas: leaf on the car's back → Ternopil↔Zolochiv/Brody/Dubno roads (H02/P39/E40/P26/E85); visual glitch → only Ivano-Frankivsk; yellow Opel flag on the antenna → one side of the Chernobyl road

Red soil on mine tracks + Brazil-style poles (bait! foliage isn't tropical + long antenna); poles w/ red band unique to Kryvyi Rih

Sunflower bus shelters (yellow-green, 'Оліс' brand) → Mykolaiv + Kherson oblasts; 'Polish' bollards (wrap-around red reflector) → Zakarpattia

Special car trekker Ivankiv → Pripyat: inside Pripyat = abandoned, overgrown, eerie buildings