'They killed us': Russia's Novaya Gazeta shuts after 33 years

Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia's best-known independent newspapers still working inside the country, says it will close on November 9, ending 33 years of reporting under mounting state pressure. ^[1][3][5]

The newspaper announced on October 30 that it would shut down its servers, leave its Moscow office and publish a final issue. Its editors said Russian authorities and security services had made continued work impossible. ^[1][2]

The closure will remove a newsroom that continued reporting from inside Russia after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, despite blocked websites and the loss of its media registration. In September 2026, authorities designated its entire editorial staff as foreign agents, a measure the newspaper says covered more than 100 journalists and contributors. ^[1][3][5]

In Russia, the foreign-agent label imposes mandatory reporting duties and requires those designated to mark their published material with notices declaring their status.

"They killed us," the editorial staff wrote in its farewell statement. The paper said its reader donation system was cut off at the same time it received an eviction notice, describing the measures as coordinated pressure to end its work. That coordination is the newspaper's allegation. ^[1]

Russian authorities have not given a response to the closure announcement or the editors' account of the pressure. The number of jobs that will be lost, the staff's next steps and the practical arrangements for the final issue have not been established. ^[1][2][5]

The means to publish, removed one by one

Novaya Gazeta's announcement describes the destruction of the practical means a newspaper needs to operate: publication, distribution, funding and a workplace. The editors say authorities blocked its online resources, took away its registration, seized its printing house and prevented it from publishing. ^[1]

Some of those restrictions have a documented history stretching back to the first year of the full-scale invasion. In 2022, Novaya Gazeta stopped printing after receiving warnings over foreign-agent labels, the required notices marking material associated with those designated. A Moscow court later revoked its print licence, while websites belonging to associated publications were also blocked. ^[4]

The court's stated reason for revoking the licence was the newspaper's failure to provide documents concerning a change of ownership in 2006, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Novaya Gazeta rejected that explanation and described the ruling as politically motivated. ^[4]

That decision stripped the newspaper of its print registration. The shutdown now announced goes further: the remaining operation is to close, including its servers and physical newsroom. ^[1][2]

The September designation extended the foreign-agent label across the editorial staff. The figure of more than 100 people comes from the newspaper and includes contributors, so it cannot be treated as a count of employees facing redundancy. ^[1][5]

The loss of reader donations struck at another means of survival. According to the editors, that system was switched off as the eviction notice arrived. Losing both income and premises left the newsroom facing pressure on its finances and its ability to work in one place. ^[1]

A newsroom still inside Russia

The editors say they kept working through nearly five years of war under pressure from the security services, while many colleagues were forced to leave Russia. The remaining newsroom's presence inside the country makes this closure a loss beyond the disappearance of a familiar title. ^[1]

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 and built its reputation through investigations into corruption, abuses and political violence. Its work involved scrutinising powerful institutions from within the country they governed. ^[3][5]

For readers, the immediate consequence is concrete: an established operation that gathered and published that reporting is ending. Whether its journalists eventually find another outlet does not change what is being dismantled on November 9, an institution with its own workplace, editorial structure and connection to readers.

The pressure has also reached its senior editors. Managing editor Oleg Roldugin was arrested in April on accusations connected to gathering and using personal information. He pleaded not guilty and was subsequently under house arrest, extended until November 10, according to Novaya Gazeta. The accusations have not been established as findings of guilt. ^[1][2]

Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov was questioned and his home searched in connection with Roldugin's case, according to the newspaper. Novaya Gazeta says Roldugin's trial is approaching. ^[1][2]

The office and the history it holds

The newsroom's office in Potapovsky Lane has been its workplace for 29 years, according to Meduza. Leaving it will also mean closing the museum housed in the former office of Anna Politkovskaya, the Novaya Gazeta journalist murdered on October 7, 2006. ^[1][3]

Politkovskaya was one of six journalists and staff members of the newspaper who have been murdered, according to Reporters Without Borders. That history makes the farewell statement's language especially stark. ^[3]

Former editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for efforts to safeguard freedom of expression. Five years after that recognition, the institution he helped lead is preparing to shut its doors. ^[2][5]

Reporters Without Borders described the closure as the latest result of Kremlin repression. That is the press-freedom group's assessment, consistent with the editors' account of a sustained effort to stop their work. ^[3]