Novaya Gazeta, one of the last independent news outlets still working inside Russia, said on Friday, Oct. 30, that it will close for good. In a statement titled “We Have Been Killed,” the editorial staff wrote that on Nov. 9 they will “turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave,” and that Russian authorities and security services had forced the newsroom to stop, the newspaper said. One final issue will be published.
The closure removes a paper whose former editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov wrote that the story was not only the paper’s own but “the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” The Guardian reported.
Why Novaya Gazeta says it can no longer operate
Staff described several blows arriving at once. The landlords told the newsroom to vacate its longtime offices in central Moscow by Nov. 9. All of its donation platforms were shut down, leaving it without funding. And journalist Oleg Roldugin, arrested in April and charged with “unlawful access to computerised information,” is under house arrest awaiting trial; Sokolov’s home was searched last month in the same case, according to The Guardian.
“Sometimes it happens that your enemies win. At this moment in time, it seems like they have won, and we have no options left,” said Nadezhda Prusenkova, head of the paper’s press service. The newspaper’s statement blamed banks that cut it off, saying they follow rules set by the FSB security service; that is the newspaper’s own account. The Boston Report found no Kremlin comment in the reports reviewed. The paper also said its website had been blocked, its license revoked and its printing press seized, and that it had been “banned from publishing our newspaper in any form.”
A timeline of pressure on the newspaper
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1990s | Novaya Gazeta launches, for years partly funded by Mikhail Gorbachev |
| 2006 | Reporter Anna Politkovskaya is shot dead in her Moscow apartment building |
| October 2021 | Dmitry Muratov shares the Nobel Peace Prize |
| Late March 2022 | The paper halts its print edition after wartime censorship laws |
| April 2022 | Muratov is doused with red paint on a train, damaging his eyesight |
| September 2022 | Its media license is revoked; the website is later blocked in Russia |
| April 2026 | Journalist Oleg Roldugin is arrested |
| Oct. 30, 2026 | The paper announces it will close on Nov. 9 |
Source: The Guardian; Novaya Gazeta statement. Table: The Boston Report.
Six people linked to the paper have been murdered, including Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin and Natalia Estemirova, according to its statement. U.S. officials have said the 2022 paint attack on Muratov was carried out on the orders of Russian intelligence agencies, The Guardian reported. Russia has designated the outlet and Muratov “foreign agents.”
How Novaya Gazeta kept publishing after 2022
After the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the paper refused to publish only the official version of the war and printed blank white spaces where censored material would have run. When its license was pulled, Muratov and a core team stayed in Moscow and issued magazines in print runs of 999 copies, using a rule that magazines under 1,000 copies need no license, The Guardian reported. Exiled former staff set up Novaya Gazeta Europe, a legally separate outlet.
Even its final statement shows the limits. It replaced the word for the war with asterisks, writing “For nearly five years of ***,” because Russian law requires the term “special military operation.” The statement also lists other pressure: columnist Elena Milashina was beaten in Chechnya, the paper’s offices have been raided, and Russian law treats “discrediting the Russian army” as a criminal offense.
Reaction and what comes next
UN human rights chief Volker Türk said he was “deeply concerned and saddened,” calling the closure “yet another devastating blow for remaining independent media in the Russian Federation,” UN News reported. He urged Russia to let reporting on matters of public concern go ahead. The Associated Press also reported the closure.
The newsroom also houses a memorial to Politkovskaya in her old office; staff said the exhibits will go into storage. Prusenkova said the journalists would probably look for some way to keep working. For related coverage, see our report on two journalists jailed in Iran under an espionage law and our Dnipro report on Russia’s continuing strikes on Ukraine.
Sources
- Novaya Gazeta: We Have Been Killed (statement)
- The Guardian: Novaya Gazeta announces closure
- UN News: Türk ‘deeply concerned’ over Novaya Gazeta closure
- AP: Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper closes after 30 years
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