People gather outside Red Square and the Kremlin for the New Year celebrations in downtown Moscow late on December 31, 2023. (Photo by Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP Photo)

A man poses as his acquaintance takes pictures on a street in the town of Vyborg, Russia on January 28, 2024. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

A Russian service member stands next to an acquaintance during preparations ahead of the Victory Day parade in Moscow, Russia on May 9, 2024. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

A woman uses her smartphone walking past a mural depicting members of Russia's Yunarmiya (Young Army) youth patriotic movement in Moscow on May 14, 2024. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

Yakutsk, with a population of around 270,000, holds its own title: that of the coldest city on Earth. Here: Frost-encrusted house in the city centre. (Photo by Amos Chapple/Courtesy Images/RFE/RL)

These Northern Lights “rainbows” have turned the sky greener than the Earth below. Vitaly Istomin, 26, spent several nights in freezing conditions under the stars in northern Russia’s Khibiny Mountains to capture the aurora’s “rainbows”. (Photo by Vitaly Istomin/Caters News Agency)

A girl in a swimsuit participates in the BoogelWoogel alpine carnival at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Resort in Krasnaya Polyana, Sochi, Russia on March 31, 2018. (Photo by Artur Lebedev/TASS)

Vladimir Mogilnikov, 62, washes his hands in a communal washing room in a dormitory for the workers of Proletarka textile factory in the town of Tver, 200 kilometres north-west from Moscow on August 8, 2020. (Photo by Andrey Borodulin/AFP Photo)