“We have been killed”: Novaya Gazeta, the last major independent newsroom still working from inside Russia, closes after losing its Moscow office and its reader donations in the same week

Novaya Gazeta, the last major independent newsroom still operating within Russia, announced its closure on October 30th, following the loss of its Moscow office and its reader donations the same week. The editorial staff revealed the decision in a statement published on October 30th, stating that the newsroom would publish one final issue before turning off its servers and vacating the building on Potapovsky Lane on November 9th.

Novaya Gazeta's closure marks the end of more than three decades of work, and The Economist described the paper as Russia's last free newspaper. The closure comes after repeated exposure of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, including a memo that reportedly reached Putin's administration in 2014 regarding plans to annex Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and a witness account supporting the identification of a Russian colonel linked to the downing of MH17 in 2017.

Despite continuing to work in Moscow throughout the war, the paper faced mounting pressure this year, ultimately resulting in the eviction of its office and the suspension of reader donations. The eviction was reported by The Insider on October 29th, citing a letter from editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov and journalist Irina Gordienko.

The eviction letter emphasized the lack of time to find a new office and a complete lack of funds. The source of the eviction and the owner's position remain undisclosed. Moreover, the platform used to collect reader donations was shut down simultaneously with the eviction letter, leading the editors to accuse banks of a coordinated campaign, blaming the FSB, the Justice Ministry, and the Prosecutor's Office.

The museum of Anna Politkovskaya, established in 2021 in her former office within the same building, will also cease operations. The statement lists six colleagues killed for their work and recalls the attack on Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, who nearly lost his sight, noting the absence of a criminal case. Columnist Elena Milashina was abducted and beaten in Chechnya in 2023, and a raid on the newsroom occurred in April, with Oleg Roldugin, the paper's managing editor, detained in a criminal case related to the alleged illegal use of personal data.

Roldugin was effectively taken hostage for his journalistic work, and his trial is pending. In mid-October, Sokolov's apartment was raided, and earlier this year, Novaya Gazeta was added to the Foreign Agents Register by the Justice Ministry, which listed more than 100 journalists and contributors. The eviction and the cut off of donations occurred concurrently, forcing Novaya Gazeta to shut down its operations on November 9th.