Many of the photos coming out of Venezuela, Ukraine, Thailand and Turkey over the past 10 months are images of violent disarray. Pictures of fire, blood and tear gas have woven a theme of chaos into the minds of those who have seen them. Yet, while each of those nations has gone or is going through a period of violent unrest that has pitted citizens against government, a closer look at the riots shows they're not as disorganized as they seem.

No matter the country, protesters show up to clashes outfitted with gear designed to protect them from deterrents used by the state's military and/or police. They use shields to block batons, masks of all kind to make sure they don't inhale tear gas, molotov cocktails to launch attacks of their own, and more.

See also: Protestors in Turkey Redo the Ellen Selfie Inside a Police Van

“People learn from each other," said James Lewis, director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank. "That’s a global occurrence now because of the Internet, but they adjust those learnings to their own environments.”

Below, we've broken down those adjustments country by country.

Venezuela

The first public signs of unrest in Venezuela began in early February with student protests against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The nation's economy has taken a beating under Maduro's watch, which began in 2013. Inflation is up to nearly 60% and the value of Venezuela's currency, as compared with the U.S. dollar, has dropped to 87 to 1, a dramatic decline from the 8 to 1 ratio it was at the time of former President Hugo Chávez's death last year.

Rallies exploded into violence on Feb. 12 when three people were killed at a gathering in the country's capital, Caracas, and the death toll has since shot up to 41. Battles between anti-government protesters and pro-government citizens backed by government security forces have sprung up along street barriers, though police recently cleared the protest city of San Cristobal of these elements of the conflict.

When and where clashes do arise, however, protesters are prepared. They've lined up riot shields of their own in the middle of the street to form walls of protection from rubber bullets and water cannons. Like protesters in Kiev, Ukraine, Venezuelans have occasionally gone on the offensive by tossing molotov cocktails at police officers. They've also employed mortars and do-it-yourself weapons such as Miguelitos, which are hoses covered in nails.

Headgear, though, is the most noticeable part of protester "uniforms" in Venezuela.

A protester takes a selfie while wearing a Guy Fawkes mask painted with the colors of the Venezuelan flag. Image: Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press

Some sport helmets, but masks dominate the scenes of unrest. They come in silver, blue, red and other colors, some adorned with a white star in the middle, according to images captured by the Associated Press. Other protesters are more practical, sporting gas masks to protect from tear gas.

Venezuelans have also put their own touch on the Guy Fawkes mask by painting the typically white face with the yellow, blue and red of the nation's flag. (The mask, made famous in the movie V For Vendetta, depicts the Englishman who unsuccessfully plotted to blow up the House of Lords in 1605. It's now a fixture at protests worldwide.)

Maduro sat down with leaders of the opposition on Thursday, including Henrique Capriles, who Maduro barely defeated in his run for the presidency. Reuters reports that Maduro said the meeting was "worth it," but warned against expecting rapid change.

The protests have resulted in 650 injuries, and around 2,000 people have been imprisoned for some duration due to their involvement in the unrest.

Ukraine

An anti-government protester prepares to throw a Molotov cocktail during clashes with riot police outside Ukraine's parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 18. Image: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

The man in the above photo displays plenty of the gear associated with Ukrainian protesters — molotov cocktails, gas masks and rectangular shields. But some of the fighting that happened on the streets of Kiev, Ukraine, in January and February looked like something out of a war zone in the middle ages. Many protesters strapped on metal armor and dawned helmets that look designed to deflect blows from a sword.

Riots in Kiev started after hundreds of thousands of citizens gathered in the center of the capital last November to protest former President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to reject an economic integration pact with the European Union in favor of a Russian bailout package of around $15 billion.

Riots reached a new level of violence on Feb. 20 when clashes between police and protesters led to the deaths of at least 75, including several police officers. Soon after, Yanukovych fled the country, and Ukraine's new government is was recently embroiled in a conflict with Russia over control of the autonomous region of Crimea in the south of the country, which Russia recently annexed after a contested referendum in which a vast majority of Crimeans voted to join Russia. Now, some of that unrest has shifted to Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian militias have clashed with Ukrainian armed forces.

Protesters clad in improvised protective gear prepare for a clash with police in central Kiev, Ukraine. Image: Evgeny Feldman/Associated Press

But the people of Eastern Ukraine have yet to employ the hand-crafted weapons carried by protesters in Kiev. In Ukraine's capital, protesters wielded everything from hammers to wooden clubs full of nails to baseball bats. Nothing they used was a match for the real bullets fired by the government — then controlled by Russian ally Yanukovych — but they gave rioters a means to fight back, which may have cost the protesters some support from abroad.

"I also think that there is a perception that wearing armor or carrying light weapons makes the protestors look more credible and forceful," Erica Chenoweth, Ph.D., an associate professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, told Mashable via email. "Interestingly, though, the evidence suggests the exact inverse. In many places, the use of armor or weapons may repel sympathizers who see participation as more risky when protests take on this character, thereby undermining the power of the movement."

Images pitting shield-carrying protesters against shield-wielding riot police flooded out of Kiev for weeks, adding to the perception that sides of equal power were clashing in the street.

That image is not reflected in the numbers, though. Reports from various days of the unrest indicate that around 10 police officers died throughout the conflict. The death toll for protesters was about 10 times that number.

Turkey

A protester tries protect from water projected by a water canon from police during clashes in Taksim square in Istanbul on June 11, 2013. Image: Emrah Gurel/Associated Press

In June, 2013, Turkish citizens protested the government's plan to pave over Gezi Park in Istanbul, the nation's largest city. Initially peaceful, the scene turned violent as government forces tear-gassed protesters and beat them with batons in an attempt to clear the park.

The total number of protesters swelled to around 3.5 million in cities across the nation before quieting down after the summer months. Still, what was initially a protest against the end of Gezi Park morphed into something of a public indictment by many Turkish citizens of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government, which many consider repressive.

After months of quiet, the movement swelled again on March 11, following the death of a 15-year-old boy who had been in a coma since last July. While he was reportedly on his way to buy bread from a local store, a tear gas canister smashed into his skull. Two more deaths in the immediate aftermath of the new wave of protests have increased tensions between citizens and government.

The death toll for protests in Turkey over the last year is now at least 10. Around 8,000 have been injured.

Despite the danger, Turkish protesters have rarely shown up to riots carrying shields or serious weaponry, James Jeffrey, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and current visiting fellow at The Washington Institute, told Mashable. Most are outfitted in either gas masks, Guy Fawkes masks, or simple handkerchiefs tied around their mouths, according to photos taken by members of the Associated Press.

"In Turkey, there are very high penalties for assaulting a police officer," Jeffrey said. He says that's a serious deterrent to a lot of citizens, and a big reason why riots there have never escalated to the level of violence seen in Kiev not so long ago.

A protester tries to protect himself from water projected by a water canon from police during clashes in Taksim square in Istanbul on June 11, 2013. Image: Emrah Gurel/Associated Press

Chenoweth is not so sure. "I think that the laws of the country matter less in matters of civil disobedience than we think," she said. "In many cases, protesting is already illegal, so these people are already engaged in high-risk collective action."

Jeffrey believes Turkey's recent past weighs heavily on the current level of violence and the weapons Turkish rioters are willing to use. In the 1970s, clashes between left- and right-wing groups left hundreds dead and he says there has since been a resulting aversion to that level of brutality.

"I think there is a real reluctance to return to the era of street battles," Jeffrey said.

Protesters in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey's capital, were met with tear gas and water cannons during the most recent bouts of unrest in March, but rioters have not responded with levels of violence seen in other countries.

Thailand

Thai anti-government protesters carry an injured protester during a clash with riot police at a sports stadium in Bangkok, Thailand on Dec. 26, 2013. Image: Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press

Thai protesters have been clad in all types of gas masks, relied on slingshots and hand-thrown projectiles, and have rarely been pictured using any kind of riot shield. Recently, though, riots escalated to the worst political violence the nation has seen in years.

Citizen unrest in Bangkok, the nation's capital, has centered around support for or opposition to Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as premier in a 2006 military coup and has been in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom since 2008. Though he faces corruption charges, he is said to still have great influence in Thailand. His sister is current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and many were angered after a bill that was introduced last August and amended in November would have allowed her brother to re-enter the country without going to jail.

A Thai anti-government protester fires sling shots at riot policemen on Dec. 26, 2013. Image: Wason Wanichakorn/Associated Press

Last December, the prime minister called for elections that were scheduled for February, but citizens in opposition to the current government boycotted the vote. Rioters have called for an unelected council to reform what they believe to be a corrupt political process.

But there are also rioters of a different kind. Known as the "red shirts," they are supporters of deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and a clash between them and police on April 10 resulted in the worst political violence Thailand has seen in 18 years, according to The Guardian. They gathered in Bangkok to support the current government, but when police and soldiers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at them to try to disperse the crowd, rioters responded with live ammunition, petrol bombs and grenades. At least 15 people died and 521 were injured, including 64 police and soldiers.

The scene on April 10 was perhaps foreshadowed on Feb. 20 when five people died — including one police officer — after both sides took to firing bullets at each other. This skirmish was between anti-government protesters and police.

The use of deadly weapons in recent months marks a distinct escalation from the slingshots and simple gas masks seen in the above photos, though a definitive reason for the escalation remains unclear.

But something else, Lewis said, is quite clear. Demonstrations in Thailand 20 years ago might have resulted in a few paragraphs in the New York Times. Now, protest videos on YouTube spread across the web on a semi-regular basis, resulting in more media coverage, a better understanding of how protesters in different nations respond to government forces, and greater tendency for rioters across the globe to learn, and evolve, from each other.