MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday arrived at the TASS head office for the 27th meeting of the chiefs of CIS news agencies (CIS Information Council).

Preparation of joint projects for the V-Day’s 75th anniversary was one of the themes on the agenda.

"It is our common holiday. Our peoples defended the right of future generations to life," the chairman of the CIS Information Council, TASS Director General Sergey Mikhailov said at the meeting. "We have no right to forget the great accomplishment of the people who emerged the winners in the bloodiest war in the history of human race."

He pointed out that news agencies had the creative and technical potential to transfer to the younger generation the knowledge of history, values and the memories of the heroism of the country’s citizens and the Nazi atrocities.

Mikhailov said TASS was preparing a large photo exhibition entitled The Press in Wartime, featuring photographs taken by the agency’s correspondents and archive images. The exhibition will open at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. The CEO of the Belarusian news agency BelTA Irina Akulovich said her agency was geared up to participate in the TASS project. BelTA has already shared several dozen unique images.

The director of the Armenian news agency Armenpress, Aram Ananyan, briefed the Council on the information and search work being carried out ahead of the Victory Day’s anniversary. Armenpress has collected some rare images of more than 60 soldiers and officers from different Soviet republics taken on the frontline. The Council’s honorary guest, CEO of Uzbekistan’s National News Agency Abdusaid Kuchimov recalled his country’s contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. He said the V-Day’s 75th anniversary would be among his agency’s top themes next year.

The CIS Information Council was established in November 1995. It incorporates the heads of government-run news agencies of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. The next meeting will be in Baku in March 2020. The CIS Information Council’s mission is to ensure cooperation by the CIS countries in the media sphere, and create favorable conditions for the free dissemination of information, effective exchanges of professional experience and the strengthening of the media space.

Russian PM commends open-plan office space at TASS

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev finds open-plan office space at TASS "perfectly natural," he said during his visit to the news agency on Monday.

"This is perfectly natural for those working with information," he said during the tour of the agency.

TASS Director General Sergey Mikhailov informed the Russian PM about the way the agency organizes its work. "It is very difficult, you have to always be updated on what is happening, on the material," Medvedev noted.

TASS news agency publishes about 1,500 pieces of news daily, forming a comprehensive and objective map of events happening in Russia and across the world. The agency has 63 offices in 60 countries, as well as regional centers and correspondent offices in Russia, which help TASS obtain first-hand information in a quick manner from every corner of the world. About 2,000 people are currently employed at TASS.