Novaya Gazeta Closes After Three Decades of Independent Reporting

Duct tape stretched across cardboard boxes marked the end of an era in a Moscow office building. Desks were emptied, and chairs were stacked in the corner during a final editorial meeting. Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s oldest independent newspaper, is ceasing operations after more than 30 years. Staff members attribute the closure to sustained state pressure during the war in Ukraine, which has forced most other independent media outlets to close or move into exile.

Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov announced the decision in a video released last month. He stated that the Russian state had effectively killed the publication by starving it of essential resources. According to Sokolov, the state stripped the newspaper of its ability to publish, raise funds, rent office space, or report without the risk of imprisonment for its journalists.

Founded in the early 1990s, the outlet served as a primary voice for democratic ideals and criticized authorities when they fell short of those standards. This role came at a high cost. Six journalists from the paper were killed on the job. Among them was Anna Politkovskaya, a star investigative reporter whose body was found in 2006. She had been a prominent critic of the war in Chechnya.

On Monday, staff members removed portraits of the slain journalists from an office memorial wall. They carefully placed the images into a box labeled with the words "ours - keep with care." The act symbolized the preservation of the paper’s history even as its physical presence in Moscow began to fade.

Dmitry Muratov, the paper’s co-founder, received the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for the publication’s defense of press freedoms. Speaking to a crowd of journalists outside the office on Monday, Muratov described the repressions in Russia as sweeping in nature. He added that Russia’s security services effectively now run the country. Muratov noted that liberties are more under threat than ever before.

Novaya Gazeta was one of the few independent media organizations to continue working inside Russia following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Wartime censorship laws forced other outlets and half of Novaya Gazeta’s own staff into exile. Journalist Tatiana Britskaya acknowledged that operating within the country meant working within certain limits. She described the trade-off as worth it because it allowed the paper to cover the realities of the war, including refugees and political prisoners, rather than just the battlefield.

Pressure on the newspaper did not abate over the years. Muratov was attacked and nearly blinded, and the office endured multiple police raids. All employees were designated as foreign agents, a status that evokes Soviet-era enemies of the state. Despite this, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected claims that the government played a role in the newspaper's demise. He characterized the closure as a standard, rational process amid stiff competition, a explanation that staffers reject.

Andrei Kolesnikov, a columnist for the paper, described the situation as a slow strangulation of civil society. He said he has felt this pressure for a long time and noted that there is no job for people like them in the circumstances of a totalitarian regime. Kolesnikov expressed hope that the staff can find other ways to continue working together, though he admitted they have almost no choice.

As the packing continued, Muratov remained at work. He held up pictures of Russian political prisoners to the gathered crowd of domestic and international journalists. He called for the evacuation of civilians and an end to the bombings of Ukrainian cities. He also reminded the audience that millions of Russians never wanted to attack their neighbor.

In a final display of defiance, colleagues revealed a modified version of the newspaper’s old office nameplate. The text on the sign now reads: Novaya Gazeta lived here.