People walk in a park on a snowy day in Moscow, Russia, on November 4, 2024. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





Nadezhda Buyanova, a 68-year-old paediatrician denounced by a patient's mother for an alleged unpatriotic statement and accused of blaming Russia's armed forces for a military conflict against Ukraine, stands inside an enclosure for defendants during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia on November 12, 2024. (Photo by Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters)





Mourners attend a farewell service before the funeral of Vladimir Shklyarov, a principal dancer at the Mariinsky Ballet who recently fell from an apartment block balcony and died at the age of 39, in Saint Petersburg, Russia on November 21, 2024. (Photo by Anastasia Barashkova/Reuters)





Visitors walk past a sculpture of Soviet Union founder Vladimir Lenin covered in fur and placed in a refrigerator with an inscription reading 'Lenin in winter attire' at the exhibition “Ice. Life”, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, November 23, 2024. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





Contestants gather on the stage during the “Beauty of Donbas” pageant, which is held for the first time since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and attended by residents representing the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, on November 24, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)





This photo released by Russian Defense Ministry official Telegram channel on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, shows the debris of ATACMS missile found at the territory of Kursk airport in Russia. (Photo by Russian Defense Ministry Official Telegram Channel via AP Photo)





Russia's President Vladimir Putin meets with service members of the Russian armed forces, who were involved in the country's military campaign in Ukraine and currently undergo rehabilitation at the National medical research centre for traumatology and orthopedics, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Moscow on December 3, 2024. (Photo by Vladimir Astapkovich/Sputnik)





A dog dressed in overalls stands next to Christmas and New Year decorations in the centre of Moscow, Russia on December 3, 2024. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





An employee make folkloric toys as a symbol of the New Year at “Biryusinka” Toy Factory in Krasnoyarsk, Russia on December 04, 2024. Biryusinka, is one of the few enterprises in Russia that managed to preserve the ancient traditions of the production of glass Christmas tree toys. The factory continue to produce the folkloric toys of Ded Moroz (Santa Claus), rabbit and Snegurochka, which have an important place in Russian culture, to decorate Christmas tree for the upcoming Christmas and New Year. (Photo by Alexander Manzyuk/Anadolu via Getty Images)





A Russian man fishes on a frozen pond at a residential area in Moscow, Russia, 09 December 2024. The temperature in Moscow dropped to minus one degree Celsius. (Photo by Maxim Shipenkov/EPA/EFE)





The Church of St. George the Victorious on Pskov Hill is seen behind a heap of snow on a cloudy day in Moscow, Russia on December 10, 2024. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)





A seller waits for customers among a display of Matryoshka dolls, in the Red Square, decorated in preparation for Christmas and New Year festivities, in central Moscow, Russia, 11 December 2024. Russians are preparing to celebrate New Year's Eve on 31 December and Orthodox Christmas, on 07 January 2025. (Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA/EFE)





Red Square, the GUM department store, center, and the St. Basil's Cathedral, right, are decorated for the New Year and Christmas festivities are seen through a window of the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski Moscow in Moscow, Russia, on Friday, December 13, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)





A steam train of Ded Moroz (Father Frost) – the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus, travelling all over the country ahead of the New Year and Christmas season, moves along a railway in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, on December 15, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Manzyuk/Reuters)





Investigators work the site where Russian Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military's nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, and his assistant were killed by a bomb hidden in a scooter outside Kirillov's apartment building, in Moscow, December 17, 2024. (Photo by AP Photo)





Pedestrians walk in front of a New Year 2025 numerals decoration in central Moscow on December 16, 2024, in preparation for the New Year and Christmas holidays. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)





People look up at an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin, projected on the facade of a business building, in St. Petersburg, Russia, December 18, 2024, announcing Putin's annual news conference and call-in show. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)





Uzbek citizen Akhmadzhon Kurbonov, who has been charged by Russian authorities with the assassination of a senior Russian general and his assistant in a bombing claimed by Ukraine's security services, sits in a courtroom cage at the Basmanny District Court in Moscow, December 19, 2024. (Photo by Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo)





Volunteers use flour to clean birds following an oil spill caused by an incident involving two tankers damaged in a storm in the Kerch Strait, in the village of Vityazevo near the Black Sea resort of Anapa, Russia on December 20, 2024. (Photo by Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters)