Novaya Gazeta Shuts Down After Russian Pressure Campaign

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's last prominent independent newspapers, has shut down after authorities issued an eviction order and disabled the system readers used to send it donations, the paper said in a statement reported by BBC News. "They've killed us," the statement read. "The newspaper is no more."

Why did Novaya Gazeta close now?

The closure followed two simultaneous moves, according to the paper's statement: an eviction notice for its offices and the shutdown of the donation mechanism that funded its operations. With no legal office and no way to collect reader payments, the paper said continuing to publish was not possible. It called the closure a "coordinated act" by "the repressive state apparatus," per BBC News.

What did the paper accuse the Russian government of doing?

Novaya Gazeta's statement went further than citing financial and logistical obstacles. It said courts in Russia "have been destroyed along with the law" and that "having personal convictions is now state treason," BBC News reported. The paper framed the shutdown not as a business failure but as a deliberate act by Russian authorities and security services.

How many journalists tied to the paper have been killed?

Six journalists connected to Novaya Gazeta have been killed over the paper's roughly three decades of operation, according to the newspaper's own statement cited by BBC News. The most prominent, Anna Politkovskaya, was shot dead in her apartment stairwell 20 years ago this month after reporting on the wars in Chechnya. Her office inside the Novaya Gazeta building had been preserved as it was on the day she died, BBC News reported from the scene.

The numbers behind the closure

Three decades: the length of time Novaya Gazeta operated as an independent outlet before shutting down, per the paper's statement. Six: the number of journalists linked to the publication killed during that span, by the paper's own count. Twenty years: the anniversary, this month, of Politkovskaya's killing — the case that became the paper's most cited symbol of the risk its reporters took on.

What legal pressure had the paper already faced?

Before the final shutdown, Russian authorities had revoked Novaya Gazeta's operating license and blocked access to its website, forcing loyal readers to rely on virtual private networks to reach its content, BBC News reported. Several journalists and contributors tied to the outlet had been designated "foreign agents," a label Russian authorities frequently apply to critics. Earlier this year, police searched the paper's editorial office, and investigative journalist Oleg Roldugin was arrested and charged with "unlawful access to computerised information." Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov was recently brought in for police questioning and had his home searched, according to the same report.

How does this fit the broader crackdown on Russian media?

Pressure on independent journalism in Russia intensified after the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when new laws were adopted to penalize dissent and criticism of the war, BBC News reported. Novaya Gazeta had kept publishing in reduced form despite the license revocation and website block, but the combined loss of physical office space and donor funding left no operating path. The BBC's Russia editor, Steven Rosenberg, reported the closure from Moscow.

Full reporting: BBC News.

Artiglio is A coming-soon iPhone chief of staff for briefings and drafts. Not on the App Store yet.