"We've been killed by secret services": Independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta to close after 30 years

Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper, has announced its permanent closure after more than 30 years, blaming pressure from the authorities, law enforcement agencies and secret services.

Source: Novaya Gazeta

Quote: "We have been killed. On 9 November, we will turn off the lights in our home, where we lived for 30 years, shut down the servers and leave. The newspaper is no more. The Russian authorities and Russian intelligence services have forced the editorial board to stop working...

We managed to work for almost five years completely surrounded by intelligence services... This is being done by the FSB, the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor's office, and others who have appropriated the state and usurped power. This is not merely nostalgia for the Soviet past and bitterness over its loss. Behind that façade, a military dictatorship has all but been established."

Details: Novaya Gazeta has received an eviction notice for its office in central Moscow, where its journalists had worked for 29 years. Its system for accepting reader donations has been disabled. Novaya Gazeta says it has now been stripped of everything it needs to keep operating.

The newspaper also recalled that since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authorities had blocked all its online resources and seized its printing house. Intelligence officers and censors had also intervened to stop other printers from producing the paper.

Many of Novaya Gazeta's employees were forced to leave the country. Its editor-in-chief was the target of an assassination attempt. The authorities later revoked the newspaper's media registration and began designating its journalists as "foreign agents", starting with the editor-in-chief. The designation carries strict reporting requirements and other restrictions and is widely used to target independent media and Kremlin critics.

In September, the authorities designated Novaya Gazeta's entire editorial board as a "foreign agent" and added more than 100 journalists and contributors to the register.

For reference: Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta became a platform for some of the most outspoken critics of Vladimir Putin and his inner circle in the early 2000s. Among them was human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in 2006.

Background:

• In 2021, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to protect freedom of speech. On 22 March 2022, Muratov announced that he would sell his Nobel Committee medal and donate the proceeds to support Ukrainian refugees affected by Russia's war.
• After the Kremlin adopted the so-called "law on fakes about the Russian army" in early 2022, Novaya Gazeta changed the phrase "Russia's war against Ukraine" to "special military operation" to be able to continue publishing materials in Russia.

Subscribe on Patreon to back our journalism long-term.