Russia’s Oldest Independent Newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, Announces Closure

Oct. 30, 2026 Dmitry Muratov, former editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta, attends a memorial event for investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on Oct. 6, 2026. Igor Ivanko / AFP Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s oldest and most prominent independent newspaper, announced Friday that it will end its run after more than three decades in operation. “They’ve killed us,” the newspaper said in a farewell statement published on its website. “The Russian authorities and security services have forced our newsroom to shut down.” Novaya Gazeta said it still plans to release one final edition before turning off its servers and vacating its office in central Moscow on Nov. 9. Founded in 1993 with support from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Novaya Gazeta built an uncompromising reputation for investigative reporting. The publication routinely exposed government corruption, police brutality, election fraud and human rights abuses in Chechnya, while also probing Russian military operations overseas. Six of its reporters have been murdered over the years in what rights groups believe were retaliatory assassinations linked to their investigative work, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Novaya Gazeta suspended print publication shortly after President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 due to censorship laws that effectively criminalized critical reporting of the war. Russian courts subsequently revoked Novaya Gazeta’s official media license, forcing it to publish online. It continued to face pressure from law enforcement authorities, including detentions of its employees, such as that of editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov earlier this month. The closure follows reports that the newspaper would be evicted from its longstanding Moscow office. News of the eviction came as Novaya Gazeta’s former editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, was on his way to France to attend a memorial event to mark the 20th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s murder. Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.” Russia’s Justice Ministry designated Novaya Gazeta a “foreign agent” in September of this year, placing it among an already large list of independent news publications the Kremlin has targeted for their critical coverage of the war in Ukraine. Journalists at the newspaper were said to have been concerned that the Kremlin could seek to brand the newspaper as an “extremist” organization, which would expose them to criminal prosecution. “We managed to work in tight isolation under the watch of the security services for almost 5 years of war. And now, we’ve found ourselves in the ‘kill zone’,” Novaya Gazeta wrote in its farewell statement on Friday. 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