Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s last independent newspaper and one of its most well-known, announced on Friday that it was shutting down for good.
Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993, with former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev using the money from his Nobel Peace Prize to help set it up. In the over 30 years since, it has become a staple of independent Russian journalism, constantly at odds with authorities and frequently weathering censorship and harassment. On Friday, Editor-in-Chief Sergei Sokolov announced that the newspaper would be shutting down for good due to pressure from authorities, dramatically beginning his statement with, “We were killed.”
“On November 9th, we’ll turn off the lights in our home, where we’ve lived for 30 years, shut down the servers, and leave,” he said. “The newspaper is gone. The Russian authorities and Russian intelligence services forced the editorial staff to cease operations.
“Thirty-odd years of life together with the country and its citizens will end for us on the streets, without means of subsistence, under the constant threat of repression,” Sokolov added.
The outlet had long been under pressure, but state pressure escalated after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when its reporting became viewed as actively seditious. Its print and online licenses were revoked within the year, forcing it to publish only online without registration. Earlier this month, security officers raided the newspaper’s office on Potapovsky Lane in central Moscow, and soon after it was evicted altogether.
In an interview with the fellow dissident outlet Meduza, which had fled Russia years before, Sokolov said the decision was made jointly by the staff after weighing all the factors.
“The circumstances are very simple. We got together, weighed all the factors, and made the decision as a group,” he said. “We don’t make decisions in secret — it was all done openly. When the online publication Novaya Gazeta was labeled a ‘foreign agent,’ we knew perfectly well this might come up.
“Even then, we said [among ourselves] that if the state escalated things any further, we wouldn’t survive,” Sokolov said. “That’s what happened — they took away our office and our means of supporting ourselves. And we didn’t survive. After that, it became impossible to work.”
Novaya Gazeta had made its name with its investigations, which frequently earned the ire of authorities. Six of its reporters have been killed since it began publication, which supporters believe was done on behalf of the Kremlin.
Russia’s nationalist Telegram community, known as milbloggers, were ecstatic over the closing, bemoaning that it hadn’t been done sooner.
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“Under the guise of ‘honest journalism,’ and the protection of human rights, they systematically promoted the Western agenda, systematically discredited the army, reveled in any difficulties faced by the state, and promoted anti-Russian narratives,” an analysis republished by one of the most popular and influential milbloggers, Rybar, read. “What the editorial staff called ‘living with the country’ was, in reality, a continuous information operation, for which its chief ideologue, Dmitry Muratov, even received a token Nobel Prize from its curators.”
“The pompous lamentations about being ‘killed’ are aimed at a sympathetic audience, but the reality is much more prosaic — the tool has clearly served its purpose and will be replaced,” it reads, adding that “the factory of Russophobic content” will continue to operate by different means.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
