2025: The Year In Photos

Ukrainian soldier Artem dances with partner Polina at the Brave Hearts charity ball in Kyiv on May 31. "On the one hand, it's very simple," the serviceman said, describing dancing as a double amputee, "on the other hand it's physically very difficult. You have to dream, set goals, move forward, and prove by example that nothing is impossible."

Photo by Serhiy Nuzhnenko/RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

Lawyer Arianit Koci leads a donkey in front of the Kosovo national assembly building in Pristina on July 3. Koci brought four of the animals to protest a long-running political deadlock in Kosovo's government. "I chose donkeys because they symbolize the obstinacy and hard-headedness of our deputies, they behave just like donkeys,” he told reporters.

Photo by Ibrahim Berisha/RFE/RL's Kosovo Service.

Ihar Losik (right), a Belarusian journalist with RFE/RL, embraces his brother Mikita in Vilnius, Lithuania, on September 11 after Ihar's release from Belarusian captivity. Ihar served more than five years of a 15 year sentence on politically motivated charges. Losik arrived in Lithuania with 50 others following a thaw in US-Belarus relations aided by diplomatic efforts from the US and Lithuania.

Photo by Viyaleta Sauchyts/RFE/RL's Belarus Service.

The Rohat teahouse in Dushanbe during its demolition in early March. The building was a beloved landmark of the Tajik capital and had been named one of the world's best teahouses. A petition from locals to save the structure was unsuccessful amid a government-led building boom that is reshaping the Central Asian capital.

Photo by Shahlo Abdulloeva/RFE/RL's Tajik Service.

A Kyrgyz soldier alongside newly installed fencing on his country's border with Tajikistan on October 14. After decades of disputes between the two Central Asian states over exact national boundaries, Dushanbe and Bishkek agreed on demarcation lines in 2025.

Photo by Jenish Aidarov/RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.

Thousands of protesters fill one of the main intersections in Belgrade on January 27 amid student-led demonstrations sparked by the collapse of a concrete canopy of a Novi Sad railway station that killed 16 people.

Photo by RFE/RL's Balkan Service.

Uranium-rich crystals glow under ultraviolet light inside an abandoned Soviet mine in southern Czech Republic on November 4. Explorers in the Central European country are rediscovering mines abandoned in the 1960s where political prisoners were once forced to extract radioactive minerals for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program.

Photo by Amos Chapple/RFE/RL.

A boy walks in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on a snowy day in February.

Photo by RFE/RL's Turkmen Service.

Crowds gather in Skopje on March 18 to mourn 63 people killed in a fire that had torn through the Kocani nightclub in North Macedonia's capital two days earlier.

The nightclub was unlicensed and lacked a sprinkler system or adequate emergency exits. One of the banners in the crowd of the March 18 memorial stated, "Your greed turned children into ashes."

Photo by Vanja Micevska/RFE/RL's North Macedonia Service.

A fire burns in Sofia on December 1 amid the largest protests Bulgaria has seen since the 1990s over a proposed national budget and perceived corruption among the country's political elite.

Photo by Genka Shikerova/RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service.

A protester with a burnt Russian flag during a demonstration on March 1 in Berlin called by Russian opposition leaders opposing the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.

Photo by Anton Sergienko/RFE/RL's Russian Service.

A woman carries drinks in Sarajevo amid a heatwave in the Bosnian capital on July 25.

Photo by RFE/RL's Balkan Service.

Moldovan politician and oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc appears in court in Chisinau on December 2 to stand trial over his alleged role in a case dubbed the "theft of the century," in which around $1 billion was embezzled from Moldovan banks.

Photo by Andrei Moraru/RFE/RL's Moldovan Service.

Women in Ribnovo, southwestern Bulgaria, on March 17 during a wedding ceremony of the village's Muslim Pomak community. The mountain village is famous for its days-long weddings in which brides are covered in white paste and sequins.

Photo by Ilian Ruzhin/RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service.

A protester waves a Georgian flag in the center of Tbilisi on December 16 during what demonstrators said was the 384th day of running protests since unrest broke out in central Tbilisi in late 2024 after Georgia suspended talks on EU accession.

Photo by Ilia Ratiani/RFE/RL's Georgian Service.

A funeral in Kyiv for Nadia, 24, and her two-year-old daughter Angelina, who were both killed in a Russian strike on the Ukrainian capital on August 28.

Photo by Serhiy Nuzhnenko/RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

Thousands of demonstrators in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal district gather on July 7, calling for an end to violence in the restive area near the Afghan border where the Pakistani Taliban had been active.

Shah Nawaz Tarakzai/RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal

A portion of a massive sculpture of Christ under construction in a suburb of Yerevan, Armenia, on August 26. Sculptor Armen Samvelyane is working on the monument, which is due to be placed atop a 44-meter-high pedestal on the summit of Mount Hatis, near Yerevan.

Photo by Karen Minasyan/AFP.

An Afghan tailor stitches burqas inside a shop in the western city of Herat on May 13. Conditions for women and girls have drastically declined since the Taliban's 2021 takeover of Afghanistan with women now required to cover their faces in public.

Photo by Mohsen Karimi/AFP.

People look through the windows of a residential building in Moscow on March 11 that was struck by what local authorities described as a Ukrainian drone.

Photo by Reuters.

A satellite picture taken on June 22 showing the aftermath of US strikes on the Isfahan nuclear enrichment facility in central Iran.

Photo by Maxar Technologies/AFP.

A digital screen in Moscow on December 18 advertises the year-end phone-in and press conference of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Photo by Ramil Sitdikov/Reuters.

A supporter of Romania's populist presidential candidate Calin Georgescu waves the country's flag in front of Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament on January 10. Protests broke out in early January after Romania's Constitutional Court canceled the second round of presidential elections after Georgescu unexpectedly won the first round.

Photo by George Calin/Inquam Photos

A wounded man in Tehran on June 15 is helped by bystanders after Israeli strikes on the Iranian capital during what became known as the Iran-Israel war.

Photo by Majid Khahi/EPA.

US President Donald Trump offers a hand to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the tarmac of an air base in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15 amid outreach from the US in an effort to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters.

A bird flies away from the rocket plume of the Soyuz MA-27 rocket as the spacecraft blasts off to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 8.

Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters.

Armenian and Azerbaijani military positions, situated around 25 meters from each other, seen on May 13 above the southern Armenian village of Khnatsakh.

Photo by Hayk Baghdasaryan/Photolure

A married couple embrace outside the ruins of their apartment in Kyiv on June 17 following a Russian strike. The body of their young son was later discovered in the rubble.

Photo by Serhiy Nuzhnenko/RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

Relatives of Turkish army officer Umit Unce grieve during his funeral in Ankara. Unce was one of 20 killed when a military aircraft crashed into Georgian territory minutes after taking off from Azerbaijan on November 11. Investigations into the crash are ongoing.

Photo by Efekan Akyuz/Reuters.

Boys flip into a canal running through Tashkent on a hot summer's day on August 14.

Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko.