Novaya Gazeta shuts its Moscow office as Russia's last openly critical newspaper

Novaya Gazeta, Russia's last openly critical newspaper, has shut its Moscow office after authorities revoked its media registration, blocked its online resources, terminated its printing arrangements and shut down its reader donation system. In a statement on 30 October, the paper said security services and censors had 'forced the editorial team to cease its activities.'

No single decree closed the paper. Each lifeline was cut individually: the registration that made it a legal outlet, the printers where state censors refused to let it publish, the websites its readers could reach, the donation system that paid for copies. The 'foreign agent' designation had already marked the paper as a target. Publishing was never banned outright; it was made impossible one service at a time.

The newsroom had been ordered to vacate its premises. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov held a final editorial meeting attended by staff, founder Dmitry Muratov and journalists from other outlets. Afterwards, employees packed their belongings and took down the portraits of murdered colleagues from the walls: Anna Politkovskaya, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Natalya Estemirova. Six of the paper's journalists have been murdered since it was founded in 1993 and built its name on coverage of the Chechen wars and investigations into corruption and human rights abuses.

The farewell statement read: 'Elections and elected bodies of power have in effect been abolished, civil society institutions destroyed, freedom of conscience and human dignity trampled underfoot.' Muratov, a Nobel laureate, told the meeting that repression in Russia was 'overwhelming,' and that hundreds of people had already been convicted under the relevant statutes by 2021, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 'This is because the country is not run by parliament, or by local administrations or governors, but by the FSB of the Russian Federation,' he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the closure: 'some media outlets cease to exist and new ones take their place,' a process he called 'normal.' Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the shutdown.

Muratov asked the departing staff to keep working — for Russians who oppose the war, for the release of political prisoners, for a humanitarian corridor for villages in the former Oleshky area, and against the attacks on Ukrainian cities. 'The light, heat and water in cities in Ukraine could be wiped off the face of the Earth,' he said. 'These cities will be poured into sacks like dust. This madness, this slaughter must be stopped.'

More than 400,000 of the newspaper's articles have been archived and are being republished worldwide. Outside the building, Sokolov said the country would sooner or later come to its senses, and that 'as soon as the first signs of this appear, Novaya Gazeta will return to our readers and colleagues.'

After the journalists had gone, a new sign appeared on the wall beside the nameplate: 'Novaya Gazeta lived here.'