Novaya Gazeta, Russia's Last Independent Newspaper, Says It Will Close on November 9

Novaya Gazeta, Russia's best known independent newspaper, said on Friday, October 30, 2026, that it is shutting down and will close on November 9, 2026. The paper described a relentless campaign by the authorities that saw state prosecutors pursue some of its senior journalists and left it without financial support and without an office.

"On November 9th, we will turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave. The newspaper no longer exists. The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease its operations," the newspaper said in its statement. In a shorter message reported by Le Monde and CNN, the editorial team said: "They killed us."

A paper founded in 1993

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 and has existed for more than three decades. It was founded with money donated by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev from his Nobel Peace Prize award. Dmitry Muratov, a founder and former editor, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.

Six of its journalists, including investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, have been murdered in varying circumstances. Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7, 2006, outside her Moscow home.

Eviction, raid and court pressure

The paper said it was evicted from its historic headquarters on Potapovsky Lane in Moscow, where it had worked for nearly 30 years. Its donations platform, which allowed reader financial support, was shut down the same day it received the eviction notice.

On April 9, police conducted a 13 hour search and seizure operation at the paper's offices, confiscating computers, electronic devices and documents. Journalist Oleg Roldugin was arrested and placed under house arrest. He was charged with illegally collecting and disseminating computer information containing personal data and faces up to six years in prison.

In September, the courts added Novaya Gazeta to Russia's list of foreign agents. Muratov was already designated as such, number 665 in the register, and around one hundred names, mostly the paper's journalists and contributors, have since been added. On October 15, editor in chief Sergei Sokolov was detained by police, his Moscow home was searched, and he was questioned for several hours by the Investigative Committee before being released. Reporters Without Borders denounced the move.

War censorship and what continues

After Russia launched its full scale war in Ukraine in 2022, sweeping censorship rules mandated long jail terms for discrediting the Russian army or disseminating what authorities deem to be fake news. Novaya Gazeta halted publication temporarily in March 2022, and a Moscow court stripped it of its print licence in September 2022. It continued mainly online and through an occasional print version with fewer than 1,000 copies.

Novaya Gazeta Europe, the autonomous outlet founded by exiled journalists and based in Riga, Latvia, will continue to exist. Only the Moscow Novaya Gazeta is closing. More than 30 journalists from various media outlets are currently in prison in Russia, Le Monde reported.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian authorities on the closure announcement. The Kremlin has said in the past that some censorship is necessary at a time when Russia is locked in what it describes as an existential struggle with the West over Ukraine.