Photograph by Arben Hoti

On our first attempt to drive to Borje, a remote village in northeastern Albania near the border with Kosovo, we were turned away by border guards. A day later we returned with a travel permit and were finally allowed to cross.

After meeting with a local family in Borje, we set out to tell the story of the challenges faced by the village's 900 elderly residents who are largely cut off from essential services in Albania during winter due to impassable roads. Supplies and healthcare are available only across the border in Dragash, Kosovo.

We watched local resident Shate Palinci demonstrate incredible resilience as she took her 12-year-old son for a medical checkup in Kosovo at dawn, then return hours later with food for her family. She managed her household mostly on her own.

This photo captures Palinci riding her mule to a stream in Borje where the animal could drink some water. For me this photo highlights the everyday struggles and strength of those living in such isolation.

Photograph by Serhiy Nuzhnenko

We had spent the day at positions of the 25th Separate Airborne Brigade then we left at dusk with troops being rotated from the front. Several soldiers were watching the sky, ready to shoot down any Russian FPV drones.

Drones have radically changed the course of this war. Before, it was possible to access frontline positions relatively easily -- now it's intensely dangerous. Reconnaissance drones can track your movements even 10-15 kilometers from the front lines, and once you are closer quadcopters controlled through fiberoptic cables can fly with total impunity from jamming devices.

Three of us were squeezed into the back of the pickup truck, making ourselves as small as possible so as not to interfere with the soldiers. I tried not to think about the Russian positions just a kilometer away and whether their drone operators were watching us.

My job was to shoot photos, but the gloomy light, dust, and bumps in the road made focusing almost impossible.

The car flew through the fields at 120 kilometers per hour, past swaying sunflowers that will never be harvested.

Photograph by Mzia Saganelidze

After Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced his government would suspend accession talks with the European Union until the end of 2028, the street in front of the parliament quickly filled with protesters.

On the first night of these protests, November 28, the government violently dispersed protesters with riot police, but this only seemed to further anger citizens. The next day, the crowds were even larger.

Even amid a week of violence and misconduct by the security forces, this night stood out for the fact a special forces policeman was using a loudspeaker to insult and intimidate demonstrators. He was threatening people's mothers, saying unpublishable things, even vowing to come to people's homes.

This was the most inconceivable thing for me: that there is a group of people in this country who feel absolute impunity.

I took this photo at the back entrance of the parliament, where the special forces were stationed. The mostly young crowd who gathered there were throwing various objects and colored smoke flares at them, demanding answers and insulting the police for the previous night's violence.

Photograph by Viyaleta Sauchyts

That evening, Vilnius's Evangelical Reformed Church was filled with exiled Belarusians who had marched through the streets of the Lithuanian capital earlier in the day. This photo was taken as the choir performed the famous Belarusian hymn Mahutny Boza (Almighty God). The song has become a symbol of the anti-government protests in Belarus in 2020.

During the performance, I saw people moved to tears. A woman turned to me and said, "I’ve got goosebumps. This music brings back flashbacks -- and hope."

Before its forced exile, the Free Choir sang in support of anti-government protesters, opposing the violent suppression of dissent in Belarus following the contested 2020 presidential election. Many choir members were detained multiple times. Today, they perform across European capitals, raising awareness of the plight of Belarusians living under Lukashenka's regime.

Photograph by Amos Chapple

Romania's Lipovans are descendants of ethnic Russians who fled to the edges of the former Russian empire to escape religious persecution in the 17th century. Throughout Easter weekend, the churches of Romania's Lipovan villages open their belfries up to whoever wants to come and ring the bells.

On the street the clanging of bells adds to the charm of Easter as Lipovans dressed in traditional clothing greet one another with the phrase, "Christ has risen," to which the response is "Indeed, he has risen." Inside the belfries, though, it is painfully loud. When I climbed up this belfry I was faced with this scene as local men and boys took turns trussing themselves up to the battery of bells to attempt a melody.

It was deafening but, incredibly, just out of frame in this photo there were a handful of village men sitting there in the din, watching the bell ringers clanging out melodies. Soon after I left this church I lost hearing in my left ear. That passed after couple of weeks, but to this day if I put my head underwater the same ear instantly gets clogged with water and I lose my hearing again.

Photograph by Veselin Borishev

November 7 is the anniversary of an important battle of the 19th-century Serbo-Bulgarian War, and nationalists found it insulting to Bulgarians to have the premiere of Arms and the Man, a play based around this conflict, staged on that night. Some believe the play mocks Bulgarian soldiers.

Several priests from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church began to protest in front of the theater, praying for the souls of fallen soldiers, and there were children dressed in traditional folk costumes. There was no cordon and the police were just standing around smoking cigarettes in small groups nearby.

The crowd started getting bigger and louder, then the oldest protester, Yolo Denev, an 84-year-old nationalist and political candidate who is present at every protest in the city, raised his fist and yelled, "Charge!" The crowd then ran toward the theater -- straight toward where I was standing at the time.

The crowd was shouting, "Shame! Malkovich, go home!" The police finally jumped in and tried to stop them, but it was too late. The director of the theater came out of the building and attempted to talk to the protesters but he was physically attacked. He was pushed, kicked, spat on, and pulled by his shirt and tie. You can see his head at the bottom of the photo. The police somehow managed to get him back into the theater hall.

The audience was turned away from the theater, and the play was performed that night only to a group of journalists.

Photograph by Petr Trotsenko

In the summer I arrived in the very beautiful city of Khujand as part of a photo project on the Syr Darya River. On the day of my arrival, my Tajik colleague Farzon Masharipov took me to the main attraction of this city: the Panjshanbe market.

The markets of Central Asia are pure happiness for a photographer. They're always bright, noisy, and interesting, and people generally don't mind being photographed, though it's always good to be accompanied by a local so people know I'm a photographer and not a spy!

I used a compact camera that almost no one noticed. I took many photos that day, but the most interesting frame -- as is so often the case -- was a happy accident.

I came across a butcher's shop in the market illuminated by a red, almost infernal light that grabbed my attention. The vivid light illuminated the meat, making it more attractive to customers. There was a woman standing in front of the counter, and I waited until she left to make a portrait of the seller. I had a few seconds to line up the shot (that's a lot for a photographer, believe me), and as soon as the woman left, I snapped some photos. The butcher noticed me just before I took a picture of him then literally a moment later he hid behind the counter. I just had time to get this one photo.

Photograph by Maryan Kushnir

This unit was in the forest a few hundred meters from Russian positions as the invading army was trying to break through Ukrainian lines. The shelter was just a hollow in the sandy soil perhaps one meter deep. Tree trunks and tarpaulin formed the ceiling.

There were six soldiers inside what they refer to as a "rabbit hole" without enough space to sleep properly. Some fighters were working to make the shelter more habitable; others were trying to snatch a few moments' rest. Every 15 minutes the Russian Army shelled the position with heavy artillery. In some moments you could see the stress it was putting on the soldiers. The temperature was below freezing that night, and a trench candle was the only source of heat in the shelter. Anything warmer could expose the position to heat-sensitive cameras.

During the day, it was almost impossible to venture out into the forest, which was shelled constantly. They called it the Forest of Verdun in reference to the World War I battle in France. All the tree trunks were splintered into stumps by red-hot fragments of artillery shells.

Nearly a year later, the Russian Army would push through Ukraine's defensive lines in the Kharkiv region and capture this position.