Taking Cover

A Ukrainian mortar team waits for Russian shelling to cease before attempting to return fire toward an enemy position on February 16. The city of Bakhmut lies in the Donetsk province, part of Ukraine's heavily industrialized eastern Donbas region, now partially occupied by Russia. Ukrainian forces have been holding the city for months against assaults led by Russian Wagner Group mercenaries, at great cost to both sides. As the February 24 one-year anniversary of the war approached, Russia intensified attacks across southern and eastern Ukraine.

ATOYAC DE ÁLVAREZ, MEXICO

New Leaves

A soldier burns coca plants, from which cocaine is extracted, on a plantation in the southern state of Guerrero on February 15. The mountainous and difficult-to access region has long attracted poppy and marijuana growers. Authorities say as heroin prices in the U.S. have fallen with the rise of fentanyl, however, Guerrero has become a center of Mexico's small but growing cocaine industry.

Photo: FRANCISCO ROBLES