A woman bathes into the icy water on Epiphany during a traditional Epiphany at the Great Palace Pond with the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino in the background in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, January 18, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

A honour guard soldier gives a flower to a girl on International Women's Day in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, March 8, 2024. International Women's Day on March 8 is an official holiday in Russia. Per tradition, men give flowers and gifts to female relatives, friends and colleagues, even though in the past two years flowers have gotten more expensive. Marches, demonstrations and conferences are being held the world over, from Asia to Latin America and elsewhere. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

(L-R) A man nicknamed "Barcelona", Alexey Bolotov and Alexey Jakushin drink vodka as they travel by a pioneer motorised railcar on their way to Kalach, Sverdlovsk region, Russia October 18, 2015. The "pioneer," a light auxiliary rail vehicle, is a popular form of transport among people who live along the Alapayevsk railway. In a remote corner of the Urals region at the end of a narrow-gauge railway is Kalach, population about a dozen. Three decades ago 600 people called the village home, but the local forestry industry suffered as the former Soviet Union imploded and people moved away in search of work. In Kalach today there are no telephones, no mobile reception and only a few hours of electricity a day. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

In this photo taken Sunday, May 6, 2012, Denis Lutskevich, left, is detained by police during an opposition rally in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow. The former naval cadet and first-year student, 21-year-old Lutskevich was attending his first protest when he was detained, and is still in prison Monday May 6, 2013, on the first year anniversary of the protest. (Photo by Pavel Golovkin/AP Photo)

A policewoman uses her mobile phone as navy honor guards stand near of a World War Two memorial during celebrations to mark Victory Day in the Black Sea port of Odessa May 9, 2014. Ukraine celebrates the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany during World War Two on May 9. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

A cat jumps from a shelf to catch a light beam at the “Kis-Kis” Cat Cafe in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, Russia, July 6, 2015. A local animals rights group founded the shelter for dozen of homeless cats and combined it with the cafe, where visitors can communicate with animals for hourly fee in addition to drinks, table games, books and WI-FI. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

An instructor guides a student from the General Yermolov Cadet School as she aims with a gun during a field exercise outside the south Russian city of Stavropol January 24, 2015. The General Yermolov Cadet School in Stavropol is a state-run institution that teaches military and patriotic classes in addition to a normal syllabus. (Photo by Eduard Korniyenko/Reuters)

Participants of an unauthorized opposition rally gather in Tverskaya street in central Moscow on June 12, 2017. Authorities detained Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and hundreds of his supporters on Monday, as they mounted demonstrations across the nation against government corruption. Over 200 were detained in Moscow and Saint Petersburg an hour into the protest, according to an NGO that tracks arrests, with Navalny himself picked up by police in his building as he was headed to the event. (Photo by Vasily Maximov/AFP Photo)