Editor Blames Kremlin Pressure as Novaya Gazeta Announces Closure

Novaya Gazeta announced on 30 October 2026 that it will cease all operations on 9 November 2026. Its editorial board said the newspaper is gone and that Russian authorities and intelligence services forced the staff to stop. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in a YouTube video that on 9 November they will turn off the lights in the building where they have been based for 30 years, shut down the servers and leave. The paper, founded in 1993, halted print publication in 2022 after official warnings and lost its media license that year. It was added to Russia's foreign-agent register in September 2026. Banks shut down its reader-donation system around the time of an eviction notice. Sokolov was questioned on 15 October 2026 in a case linked to Oleg Roldugin, who was arrested in April 2026 and charged with unlawful access to computerised information. Masked security officers raided the newsroom in April and detained about ten employees, denying the paper's lawyer access. Dmitry Muratov, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, was designated a foreign agent in 2023 and forced to resign as editor-in-chief; Sokolov succeeded him. Novaya Gazeta Evropa was banned as an undesirable organisation in 2023. Six journalists and staff members have been murdered, including Anna Politkovskaya on 7 October 2006. A Reporters Without Borders statement asked how far the Kremlin's campaign would go and cited the murders, raids, prosecutions and foreign-agent designation. The paper said banks' internal-rules excuse would not convince anyone and blamed external rules set by the state's repressive apparatus and FSB officers. The record shows no factual dispute among sources. What follows for staff after 9 November is not stated.