"We have been killed." "Novaya Gazeta" announced its closure

"We were killed." "Novaya Gazeta" announced its closure

Novaya Gazeta, one of the most famous independent media outlets that continued its activities in Russia, has also announced its closure. A day earlier, it was reported that the editorial office was being evicted from its office in Potapovsky Lane in central Moscow — the publication's journalists had worked in this exact location for the last 29 years. As a result, the Anna Politkovskaya Museum will also close (the museum was set up in the office where she worked). After the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities blocked the publication's website and revoked the newspaper's license, and in September 2026, "Novaya" was declared a "foreign agent." According to The Economist, a meeting of the newspaper's editorial board took place on October 26, where the decision to close the publication was made. On the morning of October 30, "Novaya" officially announced the cessation of its activities.

We were killed

On November 9, we will turn off the lights in the home where we lived for 30 years, shut down the servers, and leave. The newspaper no longer exists. The Russian government and Russian special services forced the editorial team to stop working.

More than thirty years of our lives spent together with the country and its citizens are ending with us left on the street without money and under constant threat of repression.

Many years of our lives were happy — with creativity and hopes, readers, friends, texts, and films. Sometimes these years were also very bitter.

It is bitter because it was not in the bandit-ridden 90s, but precisely during the rule of this regime, that our colleagues were killed for political reasons, for fulfilling their professional and civic duty: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natalya Estemirova.

Simultaneously with the eviction letter, they also disabled our donation system, which allowed us to receive contributions from our readers. In other words, they deprived us of funds. Completely.

This is a coordinated action. Excuses that banks are doing this based on their internal corporate rules cannot convince anyone. These are external rules established by the state's repressive apparatus, by the FSB officers embedded under the roof of every organization. They consider the country their property.

After the military actions began, like all other journalists, we were deprived of the opportunity to speak about the most essential and tragic events of the current era. Laws were passed that brought censorship back to the country. Later, this censorship covered almost all spheres of human life.