Izvestiya

Izvestiya

 formerly in full Izvestiya Sovetov Deputatov Trudyashchikhsya SSSR (Russian: “News of the Councils of Working People's Deputies of the U.S.S.R.”)

Russian daily newspaper published in Moscow, the official national publication of the Soviet government until 1991. Founded in 1917, it grew rapidly in circulation. Restrictions during World War II and under Joseph Stalin slowed its growth, but it was transformed into a lively, readable daily under the editorship of Alexei Adzhubei, Nikita Khrushchev's son-in-law, while remaining an instrument of the state. Following the Soviet Union's breakup, it became an independent, employee-owned publication whose liberal editorial policy often put it at odds with both unreconstructed communists and Russian nationalists.