Top Shots: Compelling Images From Our Region

Ballet dancers perform in Swan Lake at the Donbass Opera in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in Ukraine. 

Volunteers work to clear an oil spill on the Black Sea coastline in Russia's Krasnodar region following an incident involving two tankers damaged in a storm in the Kerch Strait. 

People visit the Christmas market in Debrecen, Hungary. 

An Afghan burqa-clad woman holds a child as she begs for alms in front of the Great Mosque of Herat. 

Russian researchers show the carcass of a baby mammoth to reporters in Yakutsk. The mammoth is estimated to be over 50,000 years old and was found in the Siberian permafrost.

An aerial view shows thousands of students and citizens attending a protest in Belgrade over the collapse of a train station roof that killed 15 people in the city of Novi Sad last month.