Novaya Gazeta shuts down after more than 33 years

Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s oldest and most prominent independent newspaper, has announced that it is permanently shutting down after more than thirty-three years of operation, marking the final collapse of domestic independent print journalism under President Vladimir Putin’s administration.

The publication confirmed the closure in a stark farewell message published on its website, as reported by Spotmedia. We have been killed, the announcement stated, attributing the forced shutdown directly to Russian authorities and security services. According to Bgnes, the editorial staff revealed they would turn off the office lights, power down their servers, and abandon the premises.

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Independent Russian Newspaper Novaya Gazeta Shuts Down After More Than 33 Years

Founded in 1993 with financial backing from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the newspaper built an unyielding reputation for deep investigative reporting into government corruption, electoral fraud, and human rights abuses in Chechnya. That legacy came at a devastating human cost. Six of the publication's journalists and contributors were murdered over the decades in suspected revenge killings for their work, most notably investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in her apartment building.

The final decision to dissolve the domestic operation was reached during a clandestine meeting in a neighboring building's basement, convened out of fear that listening devices had been planted in the newsroom. Former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov and current editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov concluded that continued survival was impossible without courting an "extremist organization" designation that would criminalize the entire staff.

Pressure on the newsroom intensified dramatically following the launch of the war in Ukraine. The outlet initially suspended its print edition to comply with sweeping wartime censorship laws that criminalized accurate reporting of military actions. Subsequent state actions crippled its survival infrastructure entirely, including the addition of Novaya Gazeta and Muratov to the official "foreign agent" registry, the blocking of its donation systems, and the revocation of its media licenses by Russian courts at the behest of media regulator Roskomnadzor.

Legal harassment also targeted the paper's leadership directly. Senior editor Sergei Sokolov was recently detained and questioned by the Russian Investigative Committee following a search of his home, linked to a criminal case against colleague Oleg Roldugin, who faces up to a decade in prison under data misuse allegations. International press freedom organizations, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, have repeatedly condemned the judicial harassment and tightening legislative constraints suffocating civil society.

While the domestic arm of the publication is finished, the journalistic lineage persists beyond Russia's borders. Following the 2022 invasion, exiled staff members established Novaya Gazeta Europe in Latvia to continue independent coverage, though that entity has since been designated an undesirable organization by Moscow.

As the newsroom prepares to vacate its longtime offices, international observers note that the closure leaves virtually no independent print or broadcast media operating openly inside Russia, cementing an informational landscape dominated entirely by state-sanctioned narratives.