polkovnik

thumb|Countries which use the Eastern European variant A '''' (; Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian and ) is a military rank used mostly in Slavic-speaking countries which corresponds to a colonel in English-speaking states, in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking states and in several German-speaking and Scandinavian countries. It was originally a rank in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Russian Empire. However, in Cossack Hetmanate and Sloboda Ukraine, was an administrative rank similar to a governor. Usually this word is translated as colonel, however the transliteration is also in common usage, for the sake of the historical and social context. began as a commander of a distinct group of troops (), arranged for battle.

The exact name of this rank maintains a variety of spellings in different languages, but all descend from the Old Slavonic word (from ), and include the following in alphabetical order: Belarus — Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia — () Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Russia and Ukraine — (, ) Czech Republic and Slovakia — Poland — Slovenia —