Oleksandr Martynenko

 

 

Exactly a year ago, when Interfax-Ukraine turned 29 years old, I already planned what will be the 30th anniversary. There were many ideas, to gather professionals from different countries and talk about the difficult fate of news in the era of "superfakes," as well as to gather musicians from different countries and generations to hear how we've all changed in 30 years. Finally, just call dozens of friends from different countries and publish a collection of their thoughts that has been good and bad over the years.

None of this will happen. After 29 years and three months since the agency was active, all our previous life has stopped and a new one has started. If in the past we fought for the right to remain an independent source of truthful news, overcoming attempts to oversee, looking for safe money on a pulsating market from extreme poverty to simply poverty...

Now we are fighting with the country for the right to live. In this new life the agency, like all of us, are 270 days OLD.

All these years I often have to repeat many of our clients, colleagues and readers, do not call us "Interfax." This agency is located in Moscow, we were really created as part of it 30 years ago. But it was the time of the beginning of Yeltsin's Russia, and there were still examples of professional journalism in that country that we studied.

But over the years we have become stronger and wise, we have proved that we know not only the strict rules of an objective journalist and do our best to follow them, but also the realities of our country.

For a long time, we have gained real independence, for which I am grateful to colleagues from "Interfax," and a few years ago we supplemented this legal independence.

We are "Interfax-Ukraine" and, please, do not throw away the last word when quoting for the sake of shortening texts. It is much more important to us than the first, and in the last nine months this simple truth has become more evident to all of us than ever before.

Indeed, and in early March 2014 and early March 2022, we, like many others, were thinking about what we would do if the country's independence were to be lost to some extent.

We might want to be in the shoes of our foreign colleagues, who, for all sympathies or dislikes, will work here at any outcome. However, we are not an international structure, but a national one. And all obligations to our subscribers can be completely fulfilled only in an independent country. In another it will be impossible.

Reality for us is an absolute priority, even if it sounds impractical in a world where real, virtual, augmented and invented realities live simultaneously.

Meanwhile, representing the world as it is, and not drawn by "military correspondents," "military editors" and "military directors" of the neighboring country, we will always follow the principle "Do not harm" our country. Let our clients from all over the world forgive us – we do not even want to help the maniacs destroy our habitat. Let's go.

We will still try to write only about what we are sure of and not become a means to spread assumptions, fantasies or products of political technologists.

For us, the core thing is still – the trust of our subscribers creating our financial base and, thanks to which, we are now overcoming all the challenges of wartime.

We have always been and will be craftsmen, not artists, creating raw materials for creators, analysts and "decision-makers." If, on the basis of our information, decisions are made that are wrong, the creator will do something that is not viable, and the analyst will give us wishful thinking – we will just shrug our shoulders and continue to do our job.

In the days of anniversary, it is customary to thank. I have a huge list of those who have helped us in one way or another during these 30 years, often without even hoping to be on our news feed.

Unfortunately, some of those who helped us before are now directly or indirectly involved in attempts to destroy us, our work, our lives. I am pleased that we are doing everything possible today to ensure that their plans do not materialize. We are an example of how the bright past tries to make the dark present.

Today you only want to thank those who are fighting. At the frontline and in the rear. Good luck to them all and thank you so much!