Russia’s Novaya Gazeta has held its final editorial meeting and emptied its central Moscow office. Management says state pressure and blocked reader donations made continued work impossible. Staff and supporters marked the departure with flowers and tributes to murdered colleagues, while the Kremlin disputed the newspaper’s account of the pressure facing independent media.
Novaya Gazeta, an independent Russian newspaper, held its final editorial meeting on November 9 and left its office in central Moscow.[1], [2]
Staff packed belongings and removed portraits of murdered colleagues. People gathered outside the building, leaving flowers at the newspaper’s sign and at the memorial to Anna Politkovskaya, its murdered reporter. The departure put into effect a closure announced late last month.[1]
The newspaper’s management said state pressure had made further reporting impossible. It said banks had stopped processing the reader donations on which it relied after it was designated a foreign agent. Management also said it had been ordered to vacate its premises. Editor-in-chief Sergey Sokolov told staff that the Telegram channel would remain active until midnight and said they would seek a way to reach readers again.[1]
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, helped found Novaya Gazeta with money from his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. Co-founder Dmitry Muratov shared the same prize in 2021. The paper suspended print publication after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and tighter censorship, while continuing online. At the closing gathering, Muratov defended freedom of expression and distinguished Russia’s authorities from its people over responsibility for the war. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov disputed the disappearance of independent media, describing the closure of some outlets and emergence of others as normal turnover in a diverse media sector.[1]
