A rider shows off his skills during thr Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) holiday celebrations in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, February 26, 2023. Maslenitsa is an Orthodox Christian holiday celebrated in the last week before the Orthodox Lent. The festivities feature baking traditional pancakes, sleigh rides, sparring between groups of men and, finally burning the effigy of Maslenitsa. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





People watch as an effigy of Lady Winter burns during Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) holiday celebrations in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, February 26, 2023. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





Riders show off their skills during the Maslenitsa (Shrovetide) holiday celebrations in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sunday, February 26, 2023. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





Russian Communist party supporter holds a portrait of late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin as she leaves a memorial ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of his death at Red Square in Moscow on March 5, 2023. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)





People walk inside the newly opened Rizhskaya (Riga's) station of the Big Circle Line (BCL) of the Moscow Metro (subway) in Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 6, 2023. The new 70 kilometers (43 mile) long Big Circle Line is the longest worldwide, 13 kilometers longer than the previous record holder, the Line 10 of the Beijing Subway. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)





A sculpture of Atlant by the Danish sculptor David Jensen (1816 - 1902) is covered with melting ice at the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, 07 March 2023. The temperatures have reached zero degrees Celsius in the second largest city of Russia. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/EPA)





A man takes a picture of a mosaic image of a pike fish at Nagatinsky Zaton station of the newly opened Big Circle Line of the subway in Moscow, Russia on March 6, 2023. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





People ride a subway train in Moscow, Russia on March 6, 2023. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who was sentenced to 25 years in the United States, speaks to the media prior to an opening ceremony of the exhibition of his artworks at the Mosfilm studio in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 7, 2023. Bout has been brought back to Russia as a result of an agreement to exchange him for US basketball player Brittney Griner. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)





A woman poses for photos in snowfall on a podium installed on International Women's Day in central St. Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, March 8, 2023, with a police officer in the background. International Women's Day on March 8 is an official holiday in Russia, where men give flowers and gifts to female relatives, friends and colleagues. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





A woman walks on a snow-covered meadow in front of the 12th century Pokrova on Nerli Orthodox cathedral outside the city of Vladimir some 200 km from Moscow on March 8, 2023. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP Photo)





People look at the Eternal Flame and the Unknown Soldier's Grave at the Kremlin wall in the Alexander Garden in Moscow on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP Photo)





People walk in Red Square with St. Basil's Cathedral, left, Lenin's Mausoleum, center, the Spasskaya Tower and the Kremlin Wall, right, after sunset in Moscow, Russia, Monday, March 13, 2023. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)





A visitor levels a simulator of an infantry rocket flamethrower at “ExpoTechnoStrazh” exhibition of advanced technologies and equipment securing safety and security, which is an event organized by local authorities and Russia's Federal National Guard Service or Rosgvardiya, in Saint Petersburg, Russia on March 15, 2023. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)





Smoke rises from a Russian Federal Security Service building in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Thursday, March 16, 2023. A building used by Russia's Federal Security Service, or the FSB, caught fire on Thursday in the southern city of Rostov, some 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Russian state media reported that one person died and two were wounded, citing local emergency services and noting that the building belonged to the FSB's regional border patrol section. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)





Ru Yi, a male giant panda, enjoys a specially-decorated meal to mark International Panda Day at a zoo in Moscow, Russia on March 16, 2023. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)





Yevgeny Roizman, former mayor of Russia's fourth-largest city, walks escorted by a police officer in Yekaterinburg, Russia, Thursday, March 16, 2023. Roizman has been detained on charges that could land him behind bars as part of authorities' efforts to muzzle dissent. Yevgeny Roizman is a sharp critic of the Kremlin and one of the most visible and charismatic opposition figures in Russia. (Photo by Vladimir Podoksyonov/AP Photo)





Youth take part in an action to mark the ninth anniversary of the Crimea annexation from Ukraine in Yalta, Crimea, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)





Youth take part in an action to mark the ninth anniversary of the Crimea annexation from Ukraine with the banner reads: “Russia doesn't start wars, it ends them” accompanied with an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Yalta, Crimea, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)





A boy and Russian soldiers take part in an action to mark the ninth anniversary of the Crimea annexation from Ukraine, in Yalta, Crimea, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)