Interfax launches special project devoted to 30th anniversary of USSR collapse

Interfax is launching a special information project called 'Timeline of the Last Days of USSR. This Day 30 Years Ago' (https://www.interfax.ru/30years/), devoted to the 1991 events and the history of the collapse of one of the largest and most powerful states in the world.

The events of that period not only led to the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union, but also caused geopolitical shifts around the world on a truly global scale. The event marked the end of decades of Soviet statehood and changed the lives of millions of people.

Every person whose life was affected by those historical events has his own view of what happened. New generations of Russians, who did not live in the USSR and did not acquire Soviet identity, also want to have their own ideas of what the collapse of the USSR meant to them, their Motherland and the world in general.

Our project is a chance to remember or rethink the events that happened 30 years ago, and also an excellent reason for young citizens to get the most objective information on the historical period that preceded the appearance on the world map of a new country, the Russian Federation.

For several months, until the end of December, Interfax will publish on the project website its own news reports that were published 30 years ago, eyewitnesses' accounts, excerpts from political figures' memoirs, reports of leading foreign media outlets, and little-known documents. We want to recreate as fully as possible the timeline of those events and give everyone interested in understanding the historical processes that happened then an opportunity to study and analyze the events that accompanied the collapse of the USSR and the birth of Russia's new statehood.

This project has special significance to Interfax: those pivotal days became a kind of a test of strength and devotion to the chosen path for us, the first independent agency created in the USSR in 1989. Many agency's journalists were lucky to be not just in the midst of historical events, but also to provide truthful and objective coverage of them, providing full and practically exclusive information to subscribers.

In a situation where international communication lines were shut down, tough censorship of all reports was introduced, and many newspapers and TV programs were closed under a decree issued by the State Committee on the State of Emergency, Interfax essentially turned out to be one of the few sources of information on the developing crisis.

Leading global news agencies, TV companies, the largest Western newspapers and magazines, top state and government structures closely followed the events from Interfax news reports.

We were the first to report that the USSR had ceased to exist.

The phrase "USSR ceased to exist," which Interfax reported 23 minutes before all other information agencies, instantly spread around the world.

It happened on December 21, 1991. No one could have imagined then what the future would be like...

Today we are living in a different country. The world has changed, and Interfax has changed. But we still follow the principles that we followed when we started out as the first non-state information agency in the USSR: objectivity, truthfulness, prompt reporting, and accuracy of information.