Considering that Russia is entering the fifth year of its war in Ukraine and that its economy has been under intense international sanctions, the country looks surprisingly normal on the surface.

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine surpassed 1,418 days last month, it officially exceeded a historic milestone — the same span of time it took Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II.

A giant mural fills one side of a nine-storey Yelets apartment block.