Novaya Gazeta announces its end, saying the Russian authorities killed the newspaper

They killed us. That is the headline Novaya Gazeta put on its own end. Editor in chief Sergei Sokolov announced on Friday that the newspaper is ceasing to exist, forced out by the Russian authorities and the security services after years of escalating pressure. On November 9, we will turn off the lights in our home, where we have lived for 30 years, Sokolov wrote. We will shut down the servers and leave. The newspaper no longer exists.

The farewell letter lists the method. The state blocked the paper's online resources and took away its printing press, and censors at other presses refused to print it. The authorities revoked its registration as a media outlet, which removed its legal way to earn a living. Its offices were searched for hours, and the editor in chief's apartment was searched. At the moment the newsroom received notice of eviction, the system that let it collect donations from readers was cut off. In September the entire newsroom was designated a foreign agent, with more than 100 journalists and contributors added to the register. Sokolov himself was arrested on October 15. Muratov warned on October 20, at a Paris event in tribute to Anna Politkovskaya, that the paper could no longer exist.

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and built its name on reporting about corruption, state violence and human rights abuses that no other Russian outlet would touch. Six or seven of its journalists have been murdered since 2000, depending on the count, among them Politkovskaya, killed outside her Moscow home on October 7, 2006. Muratov was attacked in 2022 by assailants who nearly cost him his sight. No criminal proceedings were opened, although the attackers are known, the paper says. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, and he stepped down as editor in chief after he was himself designated a foreign agent.

The paper survived the first years of the Ukraine war in reduced form, publishing mainly online and in occasional print runs kept under 1,000 copies, the threshold that triggers media registration. For nearly five years of war, we managed to operate while completely surrounded by intelligence services, Sokolov said. But now that is it. We have ended up in a kill zone. More than 30 journalists from various Russian outlets are currently in prison. Novaya Gazeta Europe, founded by exiled journalists in 2022, is an autonomous outlet and will continue. The Moscow newsroom will publish a final issue before the lights go off on November 9.