Some of the most compelling photographs from RFE/RL's coverage area and beyond for the ninth week of 2018. For more photo galleries, see our Picture This archive.
Photos Of The Week #9
1
An elderly Syrian man shows a family picture after he recovered it from the rubble of his house in Kafar Batna in the Syrian rebel enclave of eastern Ghouta following reported air strikes by Syrian government forces. (AFP/Amer Almohibany)
2
A dog catches a ball as he runs through snow at a park in Milan. (AFP/Miguel Medina)
3
Iceland horses play in their paddock in Obernhain, near Frankfurt, Germany. (AP/Michael Probst)
4
A woman dives into a partly frozen lake in Shenyang in China's northeastern Liaoning Province. (AFP)
5
Snow falls on a member of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment on Whitehall in central London. (AFP/Tolga Akmen)
6
A squirrel eats grain from a bird feeder on a cold sunny day in Warsaw. (AP/Alik Keplicz)
7
An Indian boy is doused with colored water during Holi festival celebrations in Chennai. Holi, the popular Hindu spring festival of colors, is observed in India at the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the lunar month, and will be celebrated on March 2 this year. (AFP/Arun Sankar)
8
A visitor takes a photo under cherry blossoms in Taichung, Taiwan. (epa-EFE/Ritchie B. Tongo)
9
A steam train of the Harz narrow-gauge railway makes its way towards the Brocken mountain near Schierke, Germany. (Reuters/Fabian Bimmer)
10
A view of the Pyramids of Giza on the southwestern outskirts of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on February 28. (AFP/Khaled Desouki)
11
Participants wearing motorcycle helmets get sprayed by firecrackers during the Beehive Firecrackers festival in Tainan, Taiwan. (Reuters/Tyrone Siu)
12
People walk on the partially snow-covered Pilat (or Pyla) sand dune after a snowfall on February 28 in La Teste-de-Buch, southwestern France. (AFP/Nicolas Tucat)
13
A blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) is spotted near Pomaz, just north of Budapest. (epa-EFE/Attila Kovacs)
14
A woman tosses hot water into the freezing air in Berlin. The hot water is immediately turned into a sparkling cloud of snow. (AFP/dpa/Paul Zinken)
15
A general view of Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia. Sochi will be one of the host cities for the FIFA World Cup 2018 from June 14 to July 15 in Russia. (epa-EFE/Yuri Kochetkov)
16
Ducks take off from a pond on a cold winter's day near the village of Druzhnyi, 35 kilometers southeast of Minsk. (AP/Sergei Grits)
17
A dog walks on icy stairs normally used by bathers to enter and leave the water on the shore of Lake Balaton in Fonyod, 148 kilometers southwest of Budapest. (epa-EFE/Gyorgy Varga)
18
Passengers stand on a deck of a tourist boat specially designed for winter river cruises as it breaks through the frozen Moskva River in Moscow. (AP/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
19
Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar activists hold placards with the names of people who support Ukraine and who disappeared or were arrested by Russian authorities in Crimea, during a rally on Independence Square in Kyiv on February 26. Activists were marking the Day of Crimean Resistance to the Russian Occupation. (epa-EFE/Sergei Dolzhenko)
20
The Soyuz MS-06 capsule carrying the crew of Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei of the United States and Alexander Misurkin of Russia descends beneath a parachute just before landing in a remote area in Kazakhstan on February 28. The three International Space Station crew members returned to Earth after a nearly six-month mission. (Reuters/Bill Ingalls/NASA)
21
Police clash with supporters of former Georgian President Mikhael Saakashvili based in a tent camp in front of the Ukrainian parliament in Kyiv. Fourteen police officers were wounded as a result of the clash after activists unexpectedly burned tires and threw stones, and Molotov cocktails. Nine activists were detained by police. (AFP/Stringer)
22
A blue tit flies among dried plants covered with hoarfrost near the Belarusian village of Dukora, some 40 kilometers southeast of Minsk. (AP/Sergei Grits)
23
A pilgrim sits by the closed gate of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City. Christian leaders took the rare step of closing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built at the site where Jesus is believed to buried, in protest at Israeli tax measures and a proposed property law. (AFP/Gali Tibbon)
24
Gulls fly during a windy winter's day near Lake Leman in Geneva, Switzerland. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse)
25
Nuns walk past a bike covered in snow during a heavy snowfall in Rome. (Reuters/Max Rossi)