Polar frame, by Dmitry Kokh, Russia. When Kokh’s boat approached the small island of Kolyuchin in the Russian High Arctic, which had been abandoned by humans since 1992, he was surprised to spot movement in one of the houses. Binoculars revealed polar bears – more than 20 in total – exploring the ghost town. Dmitry used a low-noise drone to document them. (Photo by Dmitry Kokh/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2022)

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)

An activist with a painted face symbolizing the count of days spent in captivity attends the Free Azov rally in support of the captured defenders of Mariupol on April 21, 2024 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The participants came out to remind about the Ukrainian soldiers who have been held in Russian captivity for more than two years. (Photo by Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

Ukrainian refugee circus student Mariia Lysytska stretching in a training room in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, February 13, 2023. More than 100 Ukrainian refugee circus students, between the ages of 5 and 20, found a home with the Capital Circus of Budapest after escaping the embattled cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv amid Russian bombings. (Photo by Denes Erdos/AP Photo)

Every year, in the Rostov region of Russia, a group of 40 young and not so young rural workers compete in the Bison Track Show, or more affectionately known as: Russian Flying Tractor Racing. In front of crowds numbering up to 30,000 people, a series of smoke spilling, monstrous farming machines tear round an 8km mud track, plowing through lakes and dirt mounds, their turbos screaming and tyres scrabbling to find grip.

“The Buran program was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at TsAGI and was formally suspended in 1993. It was a response to the United States Space Shuttle program”. – Wikipedia

Photo by: These Pictures are Entirely Bad ; Source: Flickr

Ukrainian Serviceman Oleksii Hodzenko, aka Godzilla, was a civilian journalist. His father, Sergeant chief Dmytro "Godzilla" Godzenko was killed on March 31, 2016 at 6 a.m. in a mortar attack near the village of Zaitsevo near Horlivka in the Donetsk region. Since then Godzilla "junior" has joined the army, at a frontline position held by Ukraine's 503rd Detached Marine Battalion on February 7, 2022 near Verkhnotoretske, Ukraine. Regional tensions remain high as Russia continues to amass soldiers and military equipment along its border with Ukraine, where large swaths of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are held by Russian-backed separatists. Russia has also moved roughly 30,000 troops into Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north. American and European officials say they do not whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision to invade Ukraine, but have issued a series of warnings about the country's assertive military posture. (Photo by Gaelle Girbes/Getty Images)