Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta shuts down amid government crackdown
Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's few remaining outlets critical of Moscow’s war on Ukraine, has shut down following intense state pressure. The investigative newspaper held its final editorial meeting on Monday and closed its newsroom after being labelled a “foreign agent” in September. The designation effectively crippled the publication's finances by forcing banks to halt the processing of reader donations on which it relied to survive.
The shutdown follows increasing harassment of its editorial staff. Editor Oleg Roldugin was arrested in April, while authorities searched the home of editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov in October before taking him in for questioning. At Monday’s gathering in Moscow, cofounder Dmitry Muratov stated that constitutional guarantees for civil and political rights had effectively ceased to function. While the Kremlin dismissed the closure as part of a normal cycle of change, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk condemned it as a devastating blow to Russia's remaining independent press.
Co-founded by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev using funds from his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize, the paper long operated under perilous conditions. Several of its reporters were murdered over the years, including Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in 2006 after investigating military abuses in Chechnya and criticising President Vladimir Putin.
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