Rallies were held worldwide to mark the birthday of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny who is spending a third year in a Russian prison. As Russia's most prominent political prisoner, Navalny is serving a nine-year sentence for various charges that he says were politically motivated.
Despite protests, Russian Orthodox believers celebrated Trinity Sunday with the country's most famous icon. The 15th-century Trinity icon by Andrei Rublev was moved from a Moscow museum to Christ the Savior Cathedral on President Vladimir Putin’s orders.
It's rare for a cleric in Iran to attract a large following of adoring young fans on Instagram, but Sayed Mahdi Tabatabaei has done so by rescuing street dogs and cats in defiance of local taboos.
Here are some of the most compelling photographs from the 22nd week of 2023 from around RFE/RL's region. For more photo galleries, see our archive.
Nadezhda Glebovskaya once made jewelry for fashion shows, before developing a unique, politically charged form of knitted art. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the artist fled for Armenia, where she continues to work today.
The Paris Air Show tragedy 50 years ago that marked the beginning of the end for supersonic travel.
Satellite imagery from May 25 captures newly constructed military fortifications called the "Khrenin Line" near Homel, 20 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. The fortifications come as Belarus and Russia have agreed to deploy Russia's non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Local authorities have pointed the finger at Ukraine as rocket artillery strikes in Russia's western border region leave charred vehicles and claims of injured civilians.
An overnight Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed at least three people, including a 9-year-old girl and her mother, and wounded 10 others, city officials said on June 1. The casualty toll was the highest from one attack on the nation's capital in the past month.
Thirty members of the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR were injured during clashes with ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo on May 29 after they attempted to occupy the municipal headquarters in Zvecan, where an ethnic Albanian mayor had taken office last week.
The Kremlin ordered another predawn drone attack on Ukraine’s capital on May 30, killing at least one person and sending Kyiv’s residents scrambling into shelters to escape the latest wave of bombardments.
At a train station platform in eastern Ukraine, couples share moments of joy as servicemen return from war, while others leaving for battle share in the sorrow of saying goodbye.
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