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Novaya Gazeta wound up its remaining activities in Russia on November 9 2026 turning off its servers and leaving the premises it had occupied for three decades the newspaper said in a statement. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov told Reuters that authorities and security services had forced the closure after designating the outlet a foreign agent in September 2026 blocking its websites and revoking its print licence. The eviction notice arrived on October 29 2026 coinciding with the shutdown of reader donation channels that had sustained the paper since it lost other revenue streams a Committee to Protect Journalists assessment found. Sokolov described the sequence of measures as a coordinated campaign that left the team with no means to continue.
The newspaper which was founded in 1993 using funds from Mikhail Gorbachev’s Nobel Peace Prize had built a reputation for investigative reporting on corruption human rights abuses and official misconduct according to a Reuters chronology of its history. It faced intensified restrictions after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 when it halted its domestic print edition but continued publishing online from its Moscow base a Politico report noted. Five of its journalists including Anna Politkovskaya were killed over the years while pursuing such stories the Committee to Protect Journalists documented. Dmitry Muratov a former editor-in-chief who shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression said constitutional guarantees of political and civil rights had effectively ceased to function in comments carried by Reuters.
In spring 2026 authorities opened a criminal case against investigative journalist Oleg Roldugin on charges of unlawful access to personal data carrying a potential prison term of up to 10 years Reuters reported. Roldugin has remained under house arrest while police searched the home of Sokolov earlier this month as part of the same investigation. The paper’s Moscow offices were also raided and its financial support mechanisms were severed after the foreign agent label was applied to the entire editorial team an Amnesty International statement said. These steps followed the blocking of its websites and seizure of printing presses in 2022.
Novaya Gazeta’s final statement declared “We have been killed” and asserted that the Russian authorities and security services had compelled the editorial team to stop working according to translations published by Meduza and The Moscow Times. It added that the closure reflected a broader pattern in which a country and society were being finished off in the same manner. The outlet plans to publish one final issue before the shutdown. A museum dedicated to Anna Politkovskaya in her former office within the building will close alongside the newsroom the paper indicated.
A separate Novaya Gazeta Europe project established abroad after the 2022 invasion will continue operating independently the original outlet’s statement confirmed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the closure as part of a rotational process in a competitive media environment when asked by reporters. The newspaper had served as one of the last significant independent voices still based inside Russia prior to the final measures a Financial Times analysis observed. Its investigations had drawn international attention including coverage of the 2004 Beslan school siege and scrutiny of official actions during that crisis.
The loss of the physical newsroom on Potapovsky Lane removes a longstanding hub for independent journalism in central Moscow according to accounts from staff carried by BBC News and CNN. Banks had refused to process reader donations following the foreign agent designation exacerbating the financial squeeze the publication explained in its announcement. Muratov who was also labeled a foreign agent told reporters that political repressions had reached the paper after successive restrictions on its work. The sequence of actions has been viewed by press freedom organisations as the culmination of sustained efforts to silence critical reporting.
