Photos of the Week: July 25-31, 2009

A soldier using force and a hammer to crush a brick on the stomach of a comrade while training for a military parade in Vladivostok to mark Navy Day on Sunday, July 26, 2009. The annual holiday falls on the last Sunday of every July.

Russian seamen marching along the Black Sea coast in Sevastopol, Ukraine, where they were celebrating the annual Navy Day holiday on Sunday, July 26, 2009 with a Navy flag. The Black Sea Fleet in based there under a lease agreement with Ukraine until 2017, an arrangement that has become a sore point for Kiev.

Members of orthodox clergy from Ukraine's unrecognized independent Orthodox church taking part in a procession in Kiev marking the 1,021st anniversary of the adoption of Christianity in Kyivan Rus' on Tuesday, July 28, 2009. The procession coincided with a visit to Ukraine by Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which opposes the creation of an independent Ukrainian church.

An Orthodox priest and nuns taking part in the welcoming ceremony for Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Kiev on Monday, July 27, 2009. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill on Monday arrived in Ukraine on a 10-day pastoral visit.

Ukrainian ultranationalists gesturing and shouting slogans in protest of Patriarch Kirill's arrival to Kiev on Monday, July 27, 2009. About 50 Ukrainian nationalists scuffled with a group of Coassacks who gathered near the St. Vladimir monument before a service given by Kirill on Monday.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill releasing a dove given to him by Ukrainian children in Kiev on Monday, July 27, 2009.

A policeman working at the scene of a deadly crash near the village of Samarskoye in the Rostov region on Friday, July 24, 2009. A series of horrific accidents in the past few weeks has pushed road safety high on the political agenda, sending lawmakers and bureaucrats scrambling to suggest solutions.

An elderly Moldovan woman filling out her ballot during a visit to a mobile polling station in the village of Dorotchaia, near the border with the country's breakaway Transdnister region, on Wednesday, July 29, 2009. The four main opposition parties won just over half the vote among them, handing the long-ruling Communists their first defeat at the polls since 2001.

Russia's television celebrities Kseniya Sobchak, right, Tina Kandelaki, center, and Lera host the opening show of the New Wave international song contest in Jurmala, Latvia on Tuesday, July 28, 2009.

Dinara Safina of Russia hitting a return to Sara Errani of Italy during their final match at the Slovenia open tennis WTA tournament in Portoroz on Sunday, July 26, 2009. Top-ranked Safina won the match and, thereby, the tournament title.

Marat Safin returning the ball to Latvia's Ernests Gulbis during the L.A. Tennis Open in Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 29, 2009. Safin won the match 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. The veteran Russian star has announced that he will retire at the end of this year, citing a desire to experience life outside professional tennis.

Yuliya Efimova preparing for the women's 100m breaststroke semi-finals at the World Championships in Rome on Monday, July 27, 2009.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pressing a button as he takes part in the inauguration of the start of the pipeline to the Pacific port of Vladivostok in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk on Friday, July 31, 2009. The pipeline to Vladivostok will ultimately liquefy gas from Sakhalin island for export to Asia.

Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon, right, and President Dmitry Medvedev, center, hitting symbolic buttons during an opening ceremony of the Russian-built Sangtudin hydroelectric power plant in Tajikistan on Friday, July 31, 2009.

Bus drivers playing backgammon on Lesnaya Ulitsa in Moscow while waiting to drive construction workers home on Monday, July 27, 2009.

A man holding a portrait of the late human rights defender Natalya Estemirova during a rally demanding freedom for political prisoners in Moscow on Tuesday, July 28, 2009. Last Wednesday Estemirova was kidnapped from her apartment in the Chechen capital Grozny and found dead in neighboring Ingushetia with gunshot wounds.

Two teenagers, one with a sign reading, "Free MTS SIM cards," spending the day on Pushkin Square on Thursday, July 30, 2009.