MOSCOW – Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent newspapers, shut its Moscow offices Monday after years of mounting pressure from government authorities.
The closure marked the disappearance of the last major independent Russian media outlet still operating inside the country and openly challenging the Kremlin. Other critical publications either closed or relocated overseas after President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
In a statement issued Oct. 30, the newspaper said Russian authorities and security services had “forced our editorial team to cease operations.”
“Human rights and freedoms have been abolished in this country, and defending them is now treated as a crime,” Novaya Gazeta said. “Elections and elected governing bodies have been effectively dismantled, civil society institutions have been wiped out, freedom of conscience and human dignity have been trampled underfoot.”
Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta built its reputation on aggressive investigative reporting, including coverage of corruption and human rights abuses in Russia. Six of its journalists have been killed. Among them was Anna Politkovskaya, whose reporting on atrocities during the second Chechen War made her a prominent critic of Putin’s government. She was shot to death in her apartment building in 2006.
On the newsroom’s final day, journalists carefully took down portraits of their murdered colleagues from the walls where reporters and editors had planned their work for decades.
Tatiana Britskaya, editor of Novaya Gazeta’s investigations desk, said she had anticipated the paper’s closure nearly every day for the past 4 1/2 years.
“It is an incredibly difficult decision, because this is more than a workplace, more than an office — this is our home, and we’re losing it,” she said.
Novaya Gazeta came under increasing official scrutiny as the Kremlin intensified its campaign against dissent. That repression escalated sharply after Russia launched its war in Ukraine.
Dmitry Muratov, the newspaper’s longtime editor-in-chief and a co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize alongside Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, was assaulted on a train in 2022. An attacker poured red paint over him, causing severe eye irritation. Muratov resigned as editor in 2023 after Russian authorities labeled him a “foreign agent,” a designation that carries deeply negative connotations and subjects recipients to additional government scrutiny.
Authorities fined the newspaper for allegedly discrediting Russia’s armed forces and later designated it a foreign agent. Officials blocked its digital platforms, seized its printing facility, revoked its media registration and dismantled the donation system that had enabled readers to support the publication.
The final measure required Novaya Gazeta to vacate its Moscow headquarters.
As journalists exited the building and assembled outside, a new sign appeared above the nameplate that had identified the newspaper’s office. It read: “Here lived Novaya Gazeta.”
Sergei Sokolov, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, said he believed Novaya Gazeta would eventually return “with renewed strength.”
“We will live, and I am sure that this country, caught in such a terrible era, will eventually stir. As soon as those first signs appear, Novaya Gazeta will return, to our readers and to our colleagues.”
Some members of Novaya Gazeta’s staff left Russia in 2022 and established a separate publication, Novaya Gazeta Europe. The outlet has continued to deliver sharp criticism of the Kremlin and its military campaign in Ukraine.
