Vladimir Balukh and Oleksiy Sizonovych were part of Russia and Ukraine's landmark September 7 exchange of 70 prisoners, seen by many as a step toward reducing hostility between the two countries. But for both men, their freedom does not mean they are home yet: Balukh is from annexed Crimea and Sizonovych from separatist-controlled Luhansk. With other Ukrainians still in Russian prisons, the two hope to use their freedom to spread the word about "what's really happening" in Crimea and Donbas.
Three children look happy and healthy now with their grandparents in Georgia, but that's after living for a year with their mother in an Iraqi jail. Their father, an Islamic State militant, was killed in Iraq, and the Georgian government is still trying to bring her home.
Leonid was born in a small town in Russia's Far East, where his mother beat him for being gay. When he finished school, he left home and met Aleksandr, with whom he now campaigns for LGBT rights.
A Ukrainian-born Russian citizen has been shown on video apologizing for the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine. He says his acts of contrition have cost him jobs as a teacher in Russia.
Some of the teachers who survived the Beslan massacre are still working, and still haunted by the days in 2004 when 334 people were killed in their school.
Thirty-six-year-old mail carrier Madina's profession, departure from an abusive marriage, and even high heels and short skirts appear to go against the grain of what many consider “appropriate” for women in conservative Chechnya, but she shows no sign of backing down.
A Russian physics professor spends his free time as a volunteer high in the trees of Yekaterinburg, saving animals that have gone astray.
Aleksandr Kim, a Russian rights activist, intervened when he saw Moscow police stopping migrants for identity checks and refused to comply when officers demanded his documents based solely on his appearance. Kim hopes to to shed light on police officers' use of racial profiling.
This March, 51-year-old Aleksandr Gabyshev left Yakutsk in Russia's Far East to walk 8,000 kilometers to the Russian capital and rally opposition to President Vladimir Putin, whom he calls a demon. So far, no media reports suggest that he has been hindered.
An Italian priest gave sanctuary in a Moscow church to protesters fleeing from riot police amid some of the worst police brutality the Russian capital has seen in years. Later, he allowed policemen to come in for water because, he says, the Orthodox Church must offer "love to everyone."
He wears a sailor's hat and the epaulettes of a general, but it's enough to pass himself off as a traffic cop in Kyrgyzstan's busy capital.
Francis Savinovskikh made headlines in Russia when the authorities took two foster children away, citing concerns that their upbringing was not "traditional." At the time, Savinovskikh had the name Yulia and didn't accept being a man.
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