These photos and video were taken in the Russian city of Astrakhan on the evening of June 7th, 2012. (Photo by Maxim Korotshenko)

From stuffed elephants to picnics under power lines, Leipzig-born photographer Frank Herfort coaxes magical, colour-saturated tableaux from intriguing slices of everyday Russian life. Here: A lonely dog watches the mailboxes in a typical Moscow residential block. (Photo by by Frank Herfort/The Guardian)

A Russian air force technician reports to a pilot that a bomber is ready for a combat mission at Hemeimeem air base in Syria Wednesday January 20, 2016. Russian warplanes have flown over 5,700 combat missions since Moscow launched its air campaign in Syria on September 30, 2015. (Photo by Vladimir Isachenkov/AP Photo)

Activists and supporters of Ukrainian nationalist groups light flares during a rally to mark the third anniversary of the Euromaidan Revolution in downtown Kiev, Ukraine, 21 November 2016. About one thousand activists took park in the rally during which they burned tires on the Independence Square, destroyed the Russian bank Sberbank and broke windows in the office of a Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, according to Ukrainian media. (Photo by Roman Pilipey/EPA)

Ivan Plakhuta, 54, the owner of a small workshop manufacturing valenki, Russian traditional footwear, rolls a valenok in the remote Siberian village of Bolshaya Rechka, located in Taiga area in the foothills of the Western Sayan Mountain Ridge in the Yermakovsky district of Krasnoyarsk region, Russia, November 10, 2015. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A soldier shares a tender moment with his girlfriend while other soldiers rest during a rehearsal of a military parade a few days before the Independence Day in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, August 22, 2016. Ukraine to mark the 25th anniversary of the Independence Day on August 24. (Photo by Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo)

Palestinian militants from al-Husine brigade loyal to Fatah movement exits from a tunnel during during a military-style exercise graduation ceremony in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, September 20, 2015. (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

U.S. soldiers from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment take part in an artillery exercise on forward operating base Gamberi in the Laghman province of Afghanistan December 24, 2014. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)