An ice hockey-themed crew in the 2018 Zaplyv festival of handmade inflatables in 300 Years of St Petersburg Park in St Petersburg, Russia on August 5, 2018. (Photo by Peter Kovalev/TASS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, uses a binocular, as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, left, and chief of Russia's military's General Staff Valery Gerasimov, right, observe military exercises near the Baikal Lake on Wednesday, July 17, 2013. (Photo by Alexei Nikolsky/AP Photo/RIA Novosti/Presidential Press Service)

People pass by the floating restaurant “Silver Whale” which partially sank during ice drift on the Neva River in St. Petersburg, Russia, 27 March 2023. Rescuers try to secure it with ropes so that the restaurant is not swept away by the river. The temperatures have reached zero degrees Celsius in the second largest city of Russia. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A municipal worker cleans the monument of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin from a crane during preparations for the 153th anniversary of Lenin's birthday in St. Petersburg, Russia, 18 April 2023. The monument to Vladimir Lenin at the Moscow Square was installed in 1970. It was made according to the project of the sculptor Mikhail Anikushin and is the tallest monument to Lenin in St. Petersburg. (Photo by Anatoly Maltsev/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A member of Wagner group stands guard in a street in the city of Rostov-on-Don, on June 24, 2023. President Vladimir Putin on June 24, 2023 said an armed mutiny by Wagner mercenaries was a “stab in the back” and that the group's chief Yevgeny Prigozhin had betrayed Russia, as he vowed to punish the dissidents. Prigozhin said his fighters control key military sites in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

A woman leans against the colonnade of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War (also known as the Victory Museum ) – the largest museum of military history in Russia at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow on August 18, 2023. (Photo by Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP Photo)

A Cossack slashes a watermelon with a sabre during a sabre-cutting competition in the village of Novosvetlovsky, Rostov region, on August 27, 2023. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Police officers detain a man during a gathering in memory of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny near the Wall of Grief monument to the victims of political repressions in Moscow, Russia on February 17, 2024. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)