Events That Shaped Year 2022

Most Memorable Events of 2022 in Pictures

Protests and natural disasters, armed conflicts and high-level political negotiations – 2022 was anything but uneventful.
Sputnik
This gallery offers you a chance to reflect on some of the more memorable events that transpired this year, such as violent street protests in Kazakhstan; the incident at the Academy Awards ceremony in which Hollywood star Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock; the conclusion of Johnny Depp’s courtroom saga; and the funeral of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch Elizabeth II.
Take a trip down memory lane and gander at the pictures for which 2022 will likely be remembered for.
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(L to R) Kherson regional administration head Vladimir Saldo, Zaporozhye regional administration head Evgeny Balitsky, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donetsk People's Republic head Denis Pushilin and Lugansk People's Republic Leonid Pasechnik take a picture after signing the treaties on the accession of the Donetsk People's Republic, Lugansk People's Republic, Kherson region and Zaporozhye region to Russia. September 30, 2022.

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A man types on his cellphone near a huge plume of smoke rising from the Matanzas Supertanker Base as firefighters work to quell the blaze which began during a thunderstorm in Matanzas, Cuba, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022. Cuban authorities say lightning struck a crude oil storage tank at the base, sparking a fire that ignited four explosions.

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The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II is pulled past Buckingham Palace following her funeral in Westminster Abbey in central London, Monday, Sept. 19, 2022. The Queen, who died aged 96 on Sept. 8, will be buried at Windsor alongside her late husband, Prince Philip, who died last year.

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Cast members Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck attend a photo call for a special screening of "Marry Me" at DGA Theater on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022, in Los Angeles.

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This satellite image taken by Himawari-8, a Japanese weather satellite, and released by the agency, shows an undersea volcano eruption in the Pacific nation of Tonga Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022. An undersea volcano erupted in spectacular fashion near Tonga, sending large waves crashing across the shore and people rushing to higher ground.

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Local residents use a temporary cradle service to cross the river Swat after heavy rains in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on August 31, 2022. Army helicopters flew sorties over cut-off areas in Pakistan's mountainous north on August 31 and rescue parties fanned out across waterlogged plains in the south as misery mounted for millions trapped by the worst floods in the country's history.

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A dog rides through the Foresthill community in Placer County, Calif., as the Mosquito Fire burns on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022.
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Residents of Donetsk seek shelter during shelling by Ukrainian forces.

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A Delhi police officer tries to stop an opposition Congress Party supporter as he raises an empty Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder over his head during a protest against rising inflation and price hikes of essential commodities in Delhi, India, Wednesday, March 23, 2022.

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An Afghan child walks amidst the rubble of damaged houses following an earthquake in Bermal district, Paktika province, on June 23, 2022. Desperate rescuers battled against the clock and heavy rain on June 23 to reach cut-off areas in eastern Afghanistan after a powerful earthquake killed at least 1,000 people and left thousands more homeless.

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Dancers perform during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing.
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The farewell ceremony for the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who passed away on August 30 at the age of 91.

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Latvian authorities demolish a monument in Riga commemorating the city's liberation by Soviet troops from the Nazi German occupation during World War II.

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Members of the band "Kalush Orchestra" perform on behalf of Ukraine during the final of the Eurovision Song contest 2022 on May 14, 2022 at the Pala Alpitour venue in Turin.
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A partial solar eclipse, as seen on October 25 in the vicinity of Novosibirsk.

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A man drafted into the Russian Armed Forces as part of the partial mobilization launched by Moscow in the autumn amid the military operation in Ukraine.

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(LtoR) Britain's former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italy's former Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and France's President Emmanuel Macron attend the last working session of the G7 Summit at Elmau Castle, southern Germany, June 28, 2022.

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A sunbather stands in front of the receding water line of the Verdon Gorge, southern France, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022. France was in the midst of its fourth heat wave of the year Monday as the country faces what the government warned is its worst drought on record.
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Portrait of the late Shinzo Abe, former prime minister of Japan, seen at his funeral in Tokyo.

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Boulders fall as a vehicle negotiates a road during an earthquake in Bauko, Mountain Province, Philippines on Wednesday July 27, 2022. A strong earthquake left some people dead and injured dozens in the northern Philippines where the temblor set off small landslides and damaged buildings and churches and prompted terrified crowds and hospital patients in the capital to rush outdoors. One passenger was injured after a boulder hit the vehicle.

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Italy's new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni arrives for a handover ceremony at Palazzo Chigi in Rome on October 23, 2022. Far-right leader Giorgia Meloni was named Italian prime minister on October 21, 2022 after her party's historic election win, becoming the first woman to head a government in Italy.

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A boy stands outside his house in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona in El Seibo, Dominican Republic, September 20, 2022. Hurricane Fiona dumped torrential rain on the Dominican Republic and left one person dead after triggering major flooding in Puerto Rico and widespread power blackouts across both Caribbean islands.

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This combination of pictures created on March 28, 2022, shows US actor Will Smith (R) approaching comedian Chris Rock onstage and slaping him during the 94th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on March 27, 2022.

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Residents of the Leylek district of Kyrgyzstan's Batken Region evacuate from their homes due to shelling by Tajikistani troops.

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The bodies of victims, believed to have suffered from cardiac arrest are covered with sheets in the popular nightlife district of Itaewon in Seoul on October 30, 2022. Dozens of people suffered cardiac arrests in the South Korean capital Seoul on October 29 after thousands of people crowded into narrow streets in the city's Itaewon neighborhood to celebrate Halloween, local officials said.

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A frame grab taken on January 6, 2022, from an AFPTV video made on January 5, 2022, shows protesters storming in the city hall of Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty as unprecedented unrest in the Central Asian nation spun out of control due to a hike in energy prices. Protestors took gear and tear gas from police officers during a demonstration in the streets of Almaty that caused the death of twelve security officers and wounded 353 people, media reports said on January 6. Long seen as one of the most stable of the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia, energy-rich Kazakhstan is facing its biggest crisis in decades after days of protests over rising fuel prices escalated into widespread unrest.

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A delivery worker passes items to a man inside a fenced residential area under a COVID-19 lockdown in Beijing on May 11, 2022.

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Lugansk People's Militia howitzer shells Ukrainian troops near Popasnaya.

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G20 leaders raise their garden hoes for a group photo during a tree planting event at the Taman Hutan Raya Ngurah Rai Mangrove Forest on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting in Nusa Dua, on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on November 16, 2022.

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Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, center, who was re-elected again, holds hands with a supporter after voting in a presidential run-off election in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2022.

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A new mural showing the two Conservative leadership contestants Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss appears on a wall in Belfast City Centre, Northern Ireland, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. The British Prime Minister hopefuls were due to speak in Belfast on Wednesday during Conservative Party hustings.

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L), Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (C) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) at an Astana Process meeting on Syrian conflict settlement. July 19, 2022.

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US actors Amber Heard and Johnny Depp watch as the jury leaves the courtroom at the end of the day at the Fairfax County Circuit Courthouse in Fairfax, Virginia, May 16, 2022. US actor Johnny Depp sued his ex-wife Amber Heard for libel after she wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018 referring to herself as a "public figure representing domestic abuse."

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This photo taken on March 27, 2022, shows rescuers standing in a silent tribute for victims at the site of the China Eastern Airlines plane crash in Tengxian county, Wuzhou city, in China's southern Guangxi region. The Boeing 737-800 was flying between the cities of Kunming and Guangzhou on March 21 when it nosedived into a mountainside, disintegrating on impact and killing all 132 people on board.

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Indonesian army soldiers and civilians pay their respects for victims of the stampede at Kanjuruhan stadium in Malang, East Java on October 4, 2022. Elite Indonesian police officers were under investigation on October 4 over a stadium stampede that killed 125 people including dozens of children in one of the deadliest disasters in football history.

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In this image made from a NASA livestream, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft heads straight into asteroid Dimorphos on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022.
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Dancers perform during the opening ceremony ahead of the Qatar 2022 World Cup Group A football match between Qatar and Ecuador at the Al-Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, north of Doha on November 20, 2022.
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A patient shows his hands with a sore caused by monkeypox at the Arzobispo Loayza hospital in Lima, Peru, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022.
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China's President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the opening of the XX Congress of the Communist Party of China.

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South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol proposes a toast to foreign guests at an inaugural dinner at a hotel in Seoul on May 10, 2022.

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