From the effects of the coronavirus pandemic to the aftermath of armed clashes, here are some of the most striking images of the year as taken by RFE/RL's photographers.
2021: The Year's Best From RFE/RL's Photographers

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Wooden crosses mark the burial places of 42 prisoners killed during a 1953 uprising at the Vorkuta forced-labor camp in Russia.

14
A medic checks a patient in a hospital that is overcrowded with COVID-19 patients in Lviv, Ukraine, on April 6.

15
A Ukrainian soldier pets a dog in the Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, on April 17.

16
A man in the remains of a house in Batken Province, Kyrgyzstan, on May 4, after deadly armed clashes along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.