On Oct. 30, the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta has announced its plan to close, publishing a statement titled “They Killed Us.” The newspaper’s staff, who occupied a building in Potapovsky Lane in central Moscow, received a notice of eviction the day before.
“They killed us. On November 9, we will turn off the lights in our home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down the servers, and leave. There is no more newspaper. The Russian authorities and Russian security services forced the editorial team to stop working,” the statement read.
The journalists expressly blame Russia’s security services, the Ministry of Justice, and the prosecutor’s office, those who “privatized the state and usurped power”:
“Stop saying that Stalin’s Great Terror is not happening as we speak, and that the repressions have some kind of ‘digital nature.’ These are state repressions. And it is people, not numbers, who die in cells. Period. A human life has lost its meaning and been devalued.”
The editorial team also thanked its readers. The newspaper’s last issue, which was being prepared for publication, will still be released.
The editorial team also said that it continues to face financial restrictions, with private companies and banks refusing to provide services allowing for the receipt of donations, citing “internal corporate rules.” These refusals are linked to pressure from Russian security services.
The Anna Politkovskaya Museum, located in her former office, will close along with the newspaper.
Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 by a group of journalists including Dmitry Muratov, who would hold the post of the newspaper’s editor-in-chief throughout most of its history, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. In March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the newspaper suspended its print edition because of warnings from the consumer rights watchdog Roskomnadzor. In September 2022, a court revoked its registration as a media outlet, but it had continued to publish up until now.
