Russia ‘forces’ closure of investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta

Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta has announced it will shut down, citing pressure from the authorities.

The independent outlet’s editorial board said in a statement released on Friday that the newspaper has been forced to end its operations.

The Russian media has come under increased scrutiny from the state amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine. The authorities recently searched the home of Novaya Gazeta’s senior editor and arrested the editor-in-chief.

“The newspaper is gone. The Russian authorities and … intelligence services forced the editorial staff to cease operations,” the editorial board said in the statement, which was entitled: “We were killed.”

Viewed as a relative bastion of independent journalism in Russia, Novaya Gazeta has been classed as a “foreign agent” by Moscow, a label used to stifle dissent.

“Novaya Gazeta is ceasing to exist,” editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in a video statement published on YouTube. “On November 9 we will turn off the lights in our home, where we have lived for 30 years. We will shut down the servers and leave.”

Earlier this month, Sokolov was taken in for questioning as Russian authorities searched his home due, they said, to a link to a criminal case involving his colleague Oleg Roldugin.

Roldugin was arrested in April and charged with “unlawful access to computerised information”.

“How far will the Kremlin’s relentless campaign against Novaya Gazeta go?” asked media watchdog Reporters Without Borders in a statement after Sokolov was arrested on October 15.

“Six of its journalists and staff members have been murdered, its newsroom has been raided, its journalists have been prosecuted, and the publication has been designated a ‘foreign agent’,” the press freedom organisation noted.

The forced closure of Novaya Gazeta marks another escalation in Russia’s crackdown on press freedom, with few independent media outlets or journalists left in the country, as censorship levels and arrests of regime critics have skyrocketed since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The newspaper had already trimmed production inside Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine, as authorities revoked its media licence.

The paper’s then editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression” at the helm of the paper.