NOVAYA GAZETA ANNOUNCES CLOSURE IN RUSSIA

Novaya Gazeta has announced that it will close, with editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov saying Russian authorities and security services forced its editorial team to stop work. “Novaya Gazeta is ceasing to exist,” Sokolov said in a video statement on Friday. The newspaper said it would shut down its servers and leave its Moscow headquarters on 9 November, ending 30 years at the premises. It said its team faced eviction from the building on Potapovsky Lane. Novaya Gazeta also said its reader donations platform had closed and banks had cut it off.

The newspaper has criticised Russia’s war in Ukraine and reduced production inside Russia after the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Russian authorities revoked its media licence that year and classified it as a “foreign agent”. Authorities questioned Sokolov this month and searched his home in connection with a criminal case involving journalist Oleg Roldugin. Authorities arrested Roldugin in April and charged him with “unlawful access to computerised information”; he pleaded not guilty, according to the state news agency RIA. Novaya Gazeta said his house arrest had been extended until 10 November.

Novaya Gazeta said it still planned to publish one final issue. Its editorial team said censorship had prevented it from reporting on major events since the invasion began. Independent Russian journalists issued a statement supporting the newspaper after it announced the closure. Dmitry Muratov, a former editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, jointly won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on freedom of expression.