Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images
Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta, which was included in the register of “foreign agents” by the Russian Ministry of Justice in September of this year, announced its closure. The day before it became known that the editorial office of the publication was being evicted from the building it had occupied for almost 30 years.
“Novaya Gazeta was killed. Novaya Gazeta is ending its life. On November 9th we will turn off the lights in our house where we have lived for 30 years. Let’s turn off the servers and leave,” says a statement published on the Novaya website.
“For us, more than thirty years of life together with the country and its citizens will end on the street, without a means of livelihood, under the constant threat of repression,” the statement says.
The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Sokolov, announced the eviction of the editorial office from the building on Potapovsky Lane in the center of Moscow on October 28 in a letter to readers; the contents of the letter were retold by RBC, Mediazona (also included in the register of “foreign agents”) and other publications.
Sokolov wrote that a new premises had not yet been found, and the editorial office was given little time to get ready. Along with the editorial office, the museum of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, opened in her former office on October 7, 2021 on the 15th anniversary of her murder, is also closing, he emphasized.
According to Sokolov, after being included in the register of “foreign agents,” Novaya Gazeta was unable to restore the donation system - companies and banks refuse the editorial office, citing “corporate internal rules.”
“At the same time as the eviction letter, they disabled the donation system that allowed us to receive donations from our readers. That is, they were deprived of funds. At all. This is a coordinated action. No one will be convinced by the banks' excuses that they are doing this based on internal corporate rules. These are external rules established by the repressive apparatus of the state, FSB officers who have infiltrated under the roof of each organization. They consider the country their property,” Novaya Gazeta said in a statement about the closure of the publication.
Working under the name of Novaya Gazeta became impossible due to government opposition, the publication told the BBC Russian Service.
End of Most Popular
This extension will help if you have difficulties accessing the BBC Russian Service website.
Download extension
End of story Chrome browser extension - link
“Of course, there will be some other form of life, we hope that we will save people. Because Novaya Gazeta is, first of all, people, not walls. But at the same time, we understand that we will not be allowed to do this under the name of Novaya Gazeta, because repressions in Russia are now being carried out by people with whom we have had a long-term enmity. They tried for many years to achieve revenge, but there was a force that could object to them. And now there is no one left,” Nadezhda Prusenkova, head of the Novaya Gazeta press service, told the BBC.
“New Daily Newspaper” was founded in 1993 by Dmitry Muratov, Sergei Kushnerev, Akram Murtazaev and other journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda (among them was Sokolov). Later it became known as Novaya Gazeta.
Throughout its history, the newspaper had a reputation as an opposition publication. Several of its journalists were killed.
Shot dead in the entrance of her house, Politkovskaya harshly criticized the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and before that she wrote about war crimes in the war-torn republic.
At the end of March 2022, after the start of Russia's war against Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta suspended work due to warnings from Roskomnadzor, but later resumed work.
In the fall of the same year, by court decision, the licenses for the print version and website of the publication were revoked. After this, the editors were able to launch the production of new printed formats simultaneously with online publications.
Some of the publication’s journalists left Russia after the start of the war in Ukraine and launched the “Novaya Gazeta Europe” project, which the authorities later recognized as an undesirable organization in Russia.
In September 2026, the Ministry of Justice added Novaya Gazeta to the register of “foreign agents.” At the same time, the department published a list of more than 100 employees and people associated with the publication, including editor-in-chief Sokolov.
His predecessor as editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, left his position in 2023 after being included in the register of “foreign agents.”
On October 15 of this year, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta was interrogated in the case of the publication’s journalist Oleg Roldugin, initiated in the spring under an article on unlawful access to computer information containing personal data. Sokolov emerged from the interrogation as a witness.
In April, in connection with the Roldugin case, a multi-hour search was carried out at the newspaper editorial office on Potapovsky Lane.
In April, Roldugin was arrested. The case “is coming to an end, and in the near future the journalist will have to be charged in the final version,” Novaya Gazeta reported.
As the BBC wrote, the investigators’ claims against Roldugin appeared due to the telegram channel “More Than a Fact.” The judge also spoke about this during one of the meetings to select a preventive measure.
In early June, Roldugin was released from pre-trial detention center under house arrest.
Find out more
Video playlist
End Video playlist
