Demonstrators carry an injured man in Minsk during a protest after voting ended in the Belarusian presidential election on August 9. Months of protests followed the reelection of Alyaksandr Lukashenka to a sixth term in a vote widely seen as illegitimate.
Photo: Uladz Hrydzin (RFE/RL)
2020: The Year's Best From RFE/RL's Photographers
From the effects of the coronavirus pandemic to the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in Belarus, here are some of the most striking images of the year as taken by RFE/RL's photographers.
The Cosmic Ray Research Station on Armenia's Mount Aragats at an altitude of 3,200 meters (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
A girl sits inside the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, Georgia, during the Epiphany Mass on January 19. (Mzia Saganelidze, RFE/RL)
Ukraine International Airlines employees embrace during a farewell ceremony for the victims of the Flight PS752 disaster on January 19 in Kyiv. The plane was shot down after takeoff from Tehran on January 8 in what Iran's military said was a mistake. Nine crew members were killed along with 167 other people on board. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
Hajra Catic holds documents that belonged to her husband and son on January 20. They are the only mementos she has of her loved ones who were killed in the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Midhat Poturovic, RFE/RL)
The wreck of a U.S. Bombardier E-11A is seen in Afghanistan's Ghazni Province on January 27. The U.S. Air Force jet crashed on a remote plain south of Kabul, killing at least two crew members. (Habib Taseer, RFE/RL)
Models pose during Ukrainian Fashion Week in Kyiv on February 3. (Iryna Hromotska, RFE/RL)
Officers cordon off the site where a man set himself on fire in protest near the president's office in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on February 26. (Iryna Hromotska, RFE/RL)
Police officers detain a protester during an International Women's Day demonstration on March 8 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. As many as 70 people were detained, including journalists and human rights activists, according to RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service. (Gulzhan Turdubaeva, RFE/RL)
Apartments in Kyiv are lit up on March 25 as residents stay home amid a lockdown order. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
Georgian servicemen inspect cars and people approaching Tbilisi on March 31 after a nationwide lockdown went into effect. (Mzia Saganelidze, RFE/RL)
Residents of the village of Mahdyn in Ukraine's Zhytomyr region move to another village along with their animals on April 18 after their homes were burned by wildfires. The fires raged for weeks and swept through parts of the exclusion zone near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. (Maks Levin, RFE/RL)
Workers disinfect the streets of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as a measure intended to fight the coronavirus pandemic on April 18.
A believer places a prayer rug on the floor of the Cekrekcijina Mosque in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, on May 6. (Jasmin Brutus, RFE/RL)
A military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II rolls through Minsk, Belarus, on May 9. The large-scale event took place in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Uladz Hrydzin, RFE/RL)
Children hold a Crimean Tatar flag in Kyiv on May 18, marked as the Day of Remembrance for the Crimean Tatars who were deported to Central Asia and Siberia in 1944. Tens of thousands died during the mass deportations, which were recognized by Ukraine as genocide. (Serhii Nuzhnenko, RFE/RL)
Police detain protesters near Independence Square in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on June 6. More than 100 opposition activists were detained during rallies demanding democratic reforms. (Petr Trotsenko, RFE/RL)
Protesters in Belgrade, Serbia, rally on July 8 against restrictions put in place to control the spread of the coronavirus. (Vesna Anđić, RFE/RL)
The iconic bridge in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, is illuminated for an event called Golden September, held to raise awareness about childhood cancer, on September 1. (Mirsad Behram, RFE/RL)
Opposition party supporters demonstrate in Bishkek's central Alatoo Square on October 5, a day after parliamentary elections. (Ulan Asanaliev, RFE/RL)
Afghans suffering from malnutrition wait for medical treatment in the southern province of Uruzgan on October 8. (Mohammad Shareef Sharafat, RFE/RL)
Riot police clash with protesters in the city of Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East on October 10. Months of regular protests followed the arrest in July of the region's governor on decades-old murder-related charges. (Olga Tsykareva, RFE/RL)
Debris fills a home in the Azerbaijani city of Ganca that was struck by a rocket fired from Armenia on October 11. Both sides suffered military and civilian losses after fighting erupted in September over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. (Azadliq Radiosu, RFE/RL)
A Ukrainian soldier is dressed for combat on October 12 in the country's eastern Donbas region, where Moscow-backed militants still hold parts of two provinces. (Marian Kushnir/RadioSvoboda.Org, RFE/RL)
Banners near Yerevan feature the names of Armenian soldiers killed in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan that started in late September. (Amos Chapple, RFE/RL)
Mourners gather at a church in Podgorica for a funeral ceremony for Metropolitan Amfilohije, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, on November 1. Amfilohije died at age 82 after falling ill with COVID-19. (Savo Prelevic, RFE/RL)
A view of ruins in the town of Agdam bordering Nagorno-Karabakh on November 24. Azerbaijani armed forces retook Agdam and two other districts previously controlled by Armenia as part of a November 9 agreement that ended the worst fighting in the region since the 1990s. (Azadliq Radiosu, RFE/RL)
A berkutchi, or eagle hunter, keeps an eye on his golden eagle in Kazakhstan's Almaty region on December 5. (Petr Trotsenko, RFE/RL)
