Many must remember the old news on the Runet about how in 2017, during military exercises in Belarus, the military masked armored vehicles using ordinary newspapers. Then they laughed at this phenomenon on the Internet. We must agree that the method is really "funny" for a person who is not a military man, but it was not invented by the Belarusians at all.
As already mentioned, tanks (and other armored vehicles) are covered with newspapers really for disguise. This is the first and only use of newspapers on armor. This technique was invented long before 2017. Thus, armored vehicles were camouflaged during the Second World War. A simple and effective method allows you to "dress" the car in white camouflage. All that is needed for this is a sufficient amount of press, some water and soap.
Now, on to the question of "poverty". It would be more correct to say that newspaper camouflage is a matter of rationality. It is much more rational to glue and then remove a newspaper than painting an armored vehicle, especially if it is not about real combat conditions, but about exercises. Why use government paint, bought with taxpayers' money for the sake of several arrivals, especially when spring will come in a month and the car will have to be painted green again. The newspaper is the best option in this respect.
In real combat conditions, however, such disguise is also used. It can be seen on armored vehicles participating in the conflict in the Donbass. From all this, one might get the impression that such an economic disguise is used only in the countries of the former USSR. However, it is not. The French military are also quite "tight-fisted" and often use newspapers to camouflage cars, including in the summer, when a large amount of burnt grass appears. Surprisingly, here, too, the newspaper is the best disguise.
There are other examples of this "modest" disguise. For example, in quite wealthy Japan, the "tight-fisted" military use chalk to apply winter segmented camouflage to armored vehicles during winter exercises.
Want to know even more interesting things? How about reading about how 50 Soviet tanks destroyed a Wehrmacht tank division during the Mtsensk battle.