The source[0] marks the image as such: "Иллюстрация на обложке: изображение сгенерировано искусственным интеллектом", which I think is probably the best "tell"
So like almost every news website they added a title picture to every article to drive engagement. The problem here is that they used a picture where a face was visible, they have to use some generic image instead.
The whole trend of adding stock pictures to everything only creates distractions. It's bad for the reader, good for the publisher. The pictures are either useless or misleading.
For the record: the weird appspot.com URL is a hack to circumvent internet censorship inside Russia (temporary domain basically), the canonical URL is https://baikal-journal.ru/2023/04/24/my-dlya-komandirov-kak-... , this is quite well known regional outlet ("Lyudi Baikala"/"People of Baikal").