Russia in 2021: The Year in Photos

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny returns to Russia on Jan. 17 after spending months recovering from a near-fatal poisoning.

He is promptly detained at border control on accusations of violating parole while in recovery, a charge he and his supporters say was trumped up.

Riot police detain protesters at a rally calling for Navalny's release in central Moscow.

Thousands of people are detained in dozens of cities across the country during the protests.

Women walk past banks of snow on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in central Moscow.

The Covid-19 vaccination center in Moscow's GUM department store.

Although vaccines have been free and widely available all year, Russia has struggled to convince its population to get jabbed.

Rehearsals for Russia's annual military parade marking the anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

The May 9 Victory Day parade on Red Square is the country's annual display of military prowess.

The Rossiya [Russia] brig sails along the Neva River during a dress rehearsal for the 2021 Scarlet Sails Festival for high school graduates.

Volunteers line up near the village of Kuereleelh as wildfires rage across the republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The remote region of Siberia suffered from record-breaking wildfires this year, and officials have linked the fires' increasing severity to climate change.

Hot weather in Moscow in July. This summer was one of the hottest ever in the Russian capital.

Police detain a journalist with a poster reading "We will not stop being journalists" during solo pickets in Moscow on Aug. 21.

Russian police detained several journalists who protested the authorities' decision to label a top independent TV channel as a "foreign agent."

A polling station in Moscow during the State Duma elections on Sept. 19.

The ruling, pro-Kremlin United Russia party kept its supermajority in parliament following the elections, sparking protests from the Communist Party which had enjoyed leads in many races before online voting results were published.

A rare campus shooting devastated Perm State University this fall. A student opened fire, leaving a number of people dead and injured before being shot in a crossfire with police and detained.

Novaya Gazeta newspaper editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov speaks to the media after being named a recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize alongside journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines.

Smog from smouldering peat bogs shrouds the Urals city of Yekaterinburg in October.

Russian actress Yulia Peresild after the landing of the Soyuz MS-18 reentry capsule. Peresild and director Klim Shipenko traveled to the International Space Station to shoot scenes for "Vyzov" [The Challenge], which Russia hopes will become the first feature film to be shot in space.

A view of St. Basil’s Cathedral and Lenin’s Mausoleum on Red Square. Due to this fall's surge in Covid-19 cases, Moscow authorities ordered a paid non-working period from Oct. 28 to Nov. 7.

A girl photographs a portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky on Kuznechny Lane in St. Petersburg. The mural is a copy of the writer's portrait by artist Vasily Perov.

Nov. 11 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of the great Russian writer.

Rescuer Alexander Zakovryashin, injured in a search and rescue operation after the Listvyazhnaya coal mine accident, is transported to a miners' healthcare center in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.

On the morning of Nov. 25, coal dust caught on fire in a ventilation shaft some 250 meters underground, filling the mine with smoke. At least 57 people were injured and 51 people, including 5 rescue workers, died.

Medics at temporary hospital for coronavirus patients at the VDNKh Exhibition Center in Moscow.

Russia remains one of the hardest-hit countries by the pandemic. The Delta variant devastated the country in the summer and fall as low vaccination rates fueled record high infections and deaths.

A street performer dressed as an angel walks past ambulances near Nikolskaya Street in central Moscow.