Novaya Gazeta, Russia's Paper of Politkovskaya, Closes Monday
After 33 years, the independent Russian paper is leaving its Moscow office and shutting down its servers. Its staff blame the Kremlin; six of its journalists have been killed.
Novaya Gazeta, Russia's best-known independent newspaper, will cease operations Monday, Nov. 9. It will leave its Moscow offices and switch off its servers 33 years after it was founded in 1993.
The staff announced the closure Oct. 30 and blamed relentless Kremlin repression. The day before, it had been ordered to vacate its offices, and the system it used to collect reader donations had been disabled. Its closing statement was titled "They Killed Us."
The final blow came after two months of steady pressure:
- Sept. 4: authorities designated the paper a foreign agent and then listed 106 people tied to the newsroom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reports.
- Oct. 15: officers searched the home of editor in chief Sergei Sokolov and took him to the Investigative Committee, where he was questioned for about three hours as a witness in a case over the illegal use of personal data.
Six people from the paper have been killed, among them reporter Anna Politkovskaya, on Oct. 7, 2006. Dmitry Muratov, who ran the paper, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
For Reporters Without Borders, the paper "will remain the symbol of free, pluralistic, independent journalism." The group ranks Russia 172nd among 180 countries on its press freedom index, with a score of 23.15.
The closure silences one of the last outlets still investigating corruption, the war and human rights from inside Russia. Some of its journalists continue to work in exile at Novaya Gazeta Europe, HRW says. The case shows how administrative, judicial and police pressure can shut down a news outlet without banning it outright.
