Runes were made up of various different signs, and are often readable as English letters when you turn them upside- down. This theory works with L and U. Runes have missing letters in their alphabet that we use today.
The Cyrillic alphabet was invented around the 9th Century in the First Bulgarian Empire, and was later spread by the church all over eastern Europe, including Russia.
The Runic alphabets were used by various Germanic peoples until about700- 750 AD, when most of them adopted the Roman alphabet. It remained in use in Sweden for considerably longer.
in other words...