 The events in August the following year when a coup attempt failed in Moscow accelerated the progress towards independence.The staff of the ministry worked a seven-day work week with threadbare facilities and supplies until January 1992, after they had secured Estonia's international recognition, and opened missions in New York City, Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bonn, Paris, and Moscow.The Estonian government considers Estonia's incorporation into the Soviet Union illegal, and the foreign ministry to have been in continual operation since 1918.