A woman wearing face mask leaves a restaurant decorated with skeletons for the upcoming Halloween party, in Kiev, on October 26, 2021. Ukraine whose public health service is under-resourced reported that 734 coronavirus deaths in last 24 hours, the highest figure since the beginning of the pandemic. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

Pigeons walk in front of the Russian Foreign Ministry building (C) in Moscow on April 8, 2024. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will visit Moscow's key diplomatic and economic partner China on April 8-9, his Ministry said in a statement. (Photo by Alexander Nemenov/AFP Photo)

Commended. In late May, about a quarter of a million snow geese arrive from North America to nest on Wrangel Island, in northeastern Russia. They form the world's largest breeding colony of snow geese. Photographer Sergey Gorshkov spent two months on the remote island photographing the unfolding dramas. Arctic foxes take advantage of the abundance of eggs, caching surplus eggs for leaner times. But a goose (here the gander) is easily a match for a fox, which must rely on speed and guile to steal eggs. “The battles were fairly equal”, notes Sergey, “and I only saw a fox succeed in grabbing an egg on a couple of occasions, despite many attempts”. Surprisingly, “the geese lacked any sense of community spirit”, he adds, “and never reacted when a fox harassed a neighboring pair nesting close by”. (Photo by Sergey Gorshkov/Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer)

Homeless people queue to get free hot food organized by social services during frost winter day in-Kiev on December 18, 2012. Nineteen people died of exposure in Ukraine in the last 24 hours amid temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), bringing the toll this month to 37, the health ministry said Tuesday. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

Figurines of former pro-Russian separatist commander Igor Strelkov from the collection entitled “Toy Soldiers of Novorossiya” are on display at a workshop in Moscow August 29, 2014. A Moscow-based maker of toy soldiers has sought inspiration for his creations from Ukrainian rebels fighting government troops in the east of Ukraine. Toy soldier maker, Timur Zamilov, displayed his new collection of rebel fighters cast in metal on Friday, before they are due to go on sale. His new collection is entitled “Toy Soldiers of Novorossiya” (New Russia), a reference to regions in eastern Ukraine where pro-Russian separatist fighters want full independence. Zamilov's selection includes models of Cossack soldiers, volunteers, soldiers bearing anti-aircraft missiles and even a miniature of prominent rebel leader Igor Strelkov. (Photo by Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft with crew members of Expedition 59/60 Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague lifts off from the launch pad at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, 15 March 2019. Hague, Koch, and Ovchinin will spend six-and-a-half months living and working aboard the International Space Station. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

A woman passes Members of historical clubs dressed in the uniform of French soldiers during ceremony of repatriation of the remains of French General Charles-Etienne Gudin de la Sablonniere, participant in the French Revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars, to France in Moscow airport Vnukovo-3, Russia, 13 July 2021. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

A woman argues as Belarus police block a street during an opposition rally in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Over the past two months, protests have broken out across the country of 9.5 million, sometimes attracting thousands – initially they were focused on the labor law but have grown to encompass calls for the resignation of President Alexander Lukashenko, whom critics call Europe's last dictator. (Photo by Sergei Grits/AP Photo)