Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's broadcast region and beyond for the 51st week of 2014. For more photo galleries, see our "Picture This" archive.
Photos Of The Week #51
1
Blacksmith Viktor Mikhalev wears a metal crown made in the likeness of the Imperial Crown of Russia at his shop in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Mikhalev makes his handicrafts from the remains of ammunition left behind in the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian government forces. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)
2
A fighter from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) hugs a fellow fighter in a YPG military base east of Qamishli before heading to the front lines in Syria. (Reuters/Massoud Mohammed)
3
Moscow residents buy goods in an IKEA store in Moscow amid a currency crisis on December 19. (epa/Yuri Kochetkov)
4
An Afghan vendor arranges a mound of harvested carrots in Jalalabad on December 19. (AFP/Noorullah Shirzada)
5
A Pakistani soldier shows the media a burned classroom at an army-run school, one day after an attack by Taliban militants in Peshawar killed 141 people, including 132 children, on December 16. (AFP/A Majeed)
6
The rising sun illuminates smoke in the air as a man crosses the street near Forward Operating Base Fenty in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
7
A son of a migrant fisherman from Burma rests in a hammock at a former shrimp warehouse where his family lives in Ban Nam Khem, Thailand. (Reuters/Damir Sagolj)
8
An Albanian girl stands in front of her dilapidated house northwest of the capital Tirana. (Reuters/Arben Celi)
9
Father Frost carries a bag of presents in a forest in Russia's Kostroma region. (TASS/Vladimir Smirnov)
10
Pedestrians walk on the Old Stone Bridge during a cold and foggy morning in the town of Prizren, Kosovo. (AFP/Armend Nimani)
11
Afghan schoolchildren study at an open-air classroom in the Mohmand Dara district in eastern Nangarhar Province. (AFP/Noorullah Shirzada)
12
Russian sailors look through the portholes of the Russian Navy frigate "Smolny" as they leave a shipyard in western France. The Russian sailors have been training for months on a French-built Mistral helicopter carrier. It is still unclear whether Paris will finally deliver the ship to Moscow. (Reuters/Stephane Mahe)
13
Mannequins on the floor outside a shop in an underground passage in Moscow. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev)
14
French-born actor Gerard Depardieu attends a ceremony and news conference to present the luxury watch from the line "Proud to be Russian" in Moscow on December 17. (Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev)
15
People carry the coffin of a male student who was killed in an attack by Taliban gunmen on a Pakistani army school in Peshawar that killed scores of people, mostly children. (Reuters/Fayaz Aziz)
16
Afghan laborers work at a plastic recycling factory in Mazar-e Sharif on December 17. (epa/Sayed Mustafa)
17
A man touches the coffin of one of the 132 students killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. (Reuters/Khuram Parvez)
18
Pakistani female activists from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) light candles in Karachi for the 141 victims of the Taliban attack in Peshawar on December 16. (AFP/Rizwan Tabassum)
19
Jewish men gather to mark the start of Judaism's festival of light, Hanukkah, in central Moscow. (AFP/Dmitry Serebryakov)
20
A man stands next to a pro-Russian separatist tank near the village of Rozsypne in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)
21
Relatives and rescue workers stand beside the bodies of some of the 125 schoolchildren who were killed in a Taliban attack on a military-run school in Peshawar. (epa/Arshad Arbab)
22
A fighter fires mortar shells from a rebel-held area toward Syrian pro-regime positions during the battle for control of the Handarat region, located just north of Aleppo. (AFP/Karam al-Masri)
23
A U.S. soldier from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment is seen as he fires an automatic weapon during a training mission near Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman Province. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
24
A dog stands at the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed near the village of Hrabove in eastern Ukraine. (Reuters/Maxim Shemetov)
25
One of the hostages runs toward police from a cafe in the central business district of Sydney during a daylong hostage incident in which two hostages and the Iranian-born gunman were killed. (AFP/Saeed Khan)