Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta has announced it will shut down, saying it has been forced to end its operations under pressure from the authorities. The independent outlet’s editorial board made the announcement in a statement released on Friday.
In the statement, the board said the newspaper “is gone” and blamed the Russian authorities and intelligence services for forcing the editorial staff to stop work. The statement was titled “We were killed.”
Pressure on the paper before its closure
Novaya Gazeta is viewed as a relative bastion of independent journalism in Russia. Moscow has classed it as a “foreign agent,” a label the source says is used to stifle dissent. State scrutiny of the Russian media has grown amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and authorities recently searched the home of the paper’s senior editor and arrested its editor-in-chief.
Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in a video statement on YouTube that the paper was ceasing to exist. Staff would turn off the lights on November 9 in the office where they have worked for 30 years, shut down the servers and leave. Earlier this month, Sokolov was taken in for questioning after authorities searched his home, which they said was linked to a criminal case involving his colleague Oleg Roldugin. Roldugin was arrested in April and charged with “unlawful access to computerised information.”
Watchdog warns of wider press crackdown
Reporters Without Borders asked in a statement, after Sokolov’s arrest on October 15, how far the Kremlin’s campaign against the paper would go. The press freedom group said six of the newspaper’s journalists and staff members had been murdered, its newsroom raided, its journalists prosecuted, and the publication designated a “foreign agent.”
The source says the closure marks another escalation in Russia’s crackdown, leaving few independent outlets or journalists in the country. Censorship and arrests of regime critics have risen sharply since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The paper had already cut production inside Russia after the invasion, when authorities revoked its media licence. Its former editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to safeguard freedom of expression at the paper.
