A Ukrainian serviceman from an anti-drone mobile air defence unit uses his mobile device near a ZU-23-2 anti aircraft cannon as he waits for Russian kamikaze drones, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kherson region, Ukraine on June 11, 2024. (Photo by Ivan Antypenko/Reuters)

Pro-Russian activists attack policemen guarding the burned trade union building in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa on May 3, 2014. More than 30 people were killed in a “criminal” blaze in Ukraine's southern city of Odessa, as violence spread across the country during the bloodiest day since Kiev's Western-backed government took power. Ukraine's interior ministry said at least 31 people had died in the fire Friday, with local media reporting that pro-Russian militants were believed to have been in the burning building at the time. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP Photo)

“Exactly one year before the long awaited Sochi Olympics, Vladimir Putin went to Sochi personally to see how the construction is going. After receiving a report saying the ski jumps that were supposed to be ready in 2011, are not completed still, while their price has sky-rocketed from 1.2 billion to 8 billion roubles, he commented, “Good for you. Good job”, and then fired the vice president of the Olympic committee. Russian artist Vasily Slonov painted his view of the upcoming games, giving a new interpretation to the adored Russian mascot Cheburashka, and combining officially endorsed stereotypes of Russia with grimmer and less accepted ones”. – Ruskie.info. (Photo by Vasily Slonov)

An employe of Russian Space Training Center hangs out to dry space suits of Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, NASA's U.S. flight engineer Kathleen Rubins, and Japanese space agency's flight engineer Takuya Onishi, right, after their undergoing training near in Noginsk, 60 km (38 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 2, 2014. The training was intended to simulate the capsule landing on water. Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese space agency's flight engineer Takuya Onishi, and NASA's U.S. flight engineer Kathleen Rubins are being trained for a future mission to the International Space Station. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Russian support personnel work to help get Expedition 29 crew members out of the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa on November 22, 2011 outside of the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. NASA Astronaut Fossum, Russian Cosmonaut Volkov and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Astronaut Furukawa are returning from more than five months onboard the International Space Station (ISS) where they served as members of the Expedition 28 and 29 crews. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images)

For many of us, simply bending over to touch our toes can be a difficult. But it's not a problem for the world's bendiest woman Julia Günthel aka Zlata (27). Russian-born Zlata can twist herself like a snake into the most extreme poses imaginable – and has broken numerous world records for her flexibility. The former gymnast, who is 5ft 8in, is so flexible she can cram herself into a 50cm squared box. Photo: Russian-born Zlata is pictured in Fifties style glam while still managing to bend herself in half. (Photo by Barcroft Media)

Children carrying guns and flags or wearing Soviet-style uniforms have become a common sight at Victory Day parades and other events in Russian-controlled Crimea. Russian and Ukrainian human rights activists have warned that such displays point to a growing trend of promoting Russian patriotism among kids on the Crimean peninsula, annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Here: A young Crimean girl wears military-type clothes during a Victory Day celebration in Sevastopol on May 9, 2018. (Photo by Oleksandra Surgan/Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Russian oppostion activists take part in a rally and march to Bolotnaya Square on February 4, 2012 in Moscow, Russia. Demonstrators braved temperatures as low as -20 degrees celsius as they took to the streets exactly one month before the presidential elections in protest against Vladimir Putin's efforts to return to the Kremlin for an unprecedented third term as President. (Photo by: Ilya Varlamov; Source: LiveJournal)