Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s best-known independent media outlets, has announced it will permanently close next month. The newspaper, whose former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel peace prize in 2021, cited intolerable pressure, including being stripped of its newsroom, its donation platforms and its legal right to publish.
“This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed,” wrote its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, in a statement published on the newspaper’s website.
Launched in the 1990s and for many years partly funded by the late Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Novaya made its name via dogged, long-form reporting on corruption, rights abuses and social issues. Over the years, six of its journalists have been assassinated, including Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down in the stairwell of her Moscow apartment block in 2006.
While Novaya always swam against a tide of repression, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 made independent reporting from inside Russia almost impossible and decimated the Russian media landscape. Novaya was one of the last critical voices still operating from inside the country.
“For nearly five years of ***, we managed to keep working while being completely encircled by the security services. Now it’s over. We have found ourselves in a ‘kill zone’,” wrote Sokolov. The stars were used in place of the word “war”, as under Russian law, journalists must refer to the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation” or face consequences.
The newspaper’s first response to the invasion was to put out a special bilingual Russian-Ukrainian edition in the days after Vladimir Putin launched the invasion. It described the war as “madness” on its front page. Soon after, the Kremlin implemented draconian new censorship laws, which forced media outlets to publish only the Russian official narrative about the conflict.
“We said it’s not journalism and we’re not going to do that,” said Nadezhda Prusenkova, the head of Novaya’s press service. The newspaper published blank white spaces instead of euphemisms and false information, to provide a visible reminder of the censorship laws.
By the end of March 2022, Novaya decided to stop publishing its print edition altogether, but the threats and pressure only increased. In April that year, Muratov was doused with red paint while on a train, an attack that damaged his eyesight and that US officials say was carried out on the orders of Russian intelligence agencies. In September that year, the newspaper’s official licence was taken away and soon after their website was blocked in Russia.
Novaya’s journalists, long used to operating in a hostile environment, found ways to circumvent the bans. Many left Russia, and a number of exiled former employees set up “Novaya Gazeta Europe”, a legally distinct outlet. Muratov and a core team stayed behind, and continued to publish a series of magazines with a print run of 999 copies, taking advantage of a law that magazines with under 1,000 copies do not require an official licence. Novaya’s website continued running, too, although the Russian state hit the outlet with various new legal threats.
“The fact Novaya kept working for this four and a half years after everything that happened was a miracle, but it was not just a miracle, it was also the daily choice of people who for continued to go to work even when it was very scary,” said Elena Kostyuchenko, a former Novaya journalist who spent 17 years at the newspaper. “Today I feel very inspired by my colleagues but also very painful and sad for them, and for all of us,” she said.
In recent months, said Prusenkova, the pressure had become intolerable. In April, the journalist Oleg Roldugin was arrested and charged with “unlawful access to computerised information”. He is under house arrest awaiting trial, and last month Sokolov’s home was searched as part of the case.
This month, the newspaper’s landlords wrote informing Novaya staff that they must vacate their longstanding office premises in central Moscow by 9 November. The newsroom has been the hub of the newspaper for decades, and houses a memorial museum to Politkovskaya in the former office of the murdered journalist. Prusenkova said the exhibits would be taken down and put into storage, for now.
On top of the eviction notice, all the outlet’s donation platforms have been shut down, leaving the paper without any source of funding. The court case, combined with the eviction and the lack of funds, gave the newspaper no choice but to close, said staff.
“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 Prusenkova. But she said it was likely the journalists of Novaya would try to find some way to continue their work. “After all, we don’t know how to do anything else,” she said.
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