Novaya Gazeta, one of Russia’s last remaining independent media, said it would halt operations until the end of the war in Ukraine After she received a second warning from state censorship for allegedly violating the country’s “foreign client” law.
The warning came a day after it happened Editor in Chief Dmitry Muratovspoke with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, at Group interview with Russian journalists Soon it was banned by the state media censorship agency, Roskomnadzor.
Novaya Gazeta is one of the most important independent newspapers in the country. Several of its journalists have been killed since the 1990s in retaliation for their reporting, including the war in Chechnya.
Roskomnadzor’s warning to Novaya Gazeta was allegedly motivated by the newspaper’s failure to identify a “foreign client” in an unspecified publication. But it appears to be retaliation for the newspaper’s decision to report on the war and Muratov’s participation in the interview with Zelensky.
In an attempt to avoid shutdown, the newspaper announced its abrupt decision to halt publication until the end of Russia’s “special operation”, the Kremlin’s official term for the invasion.
“We have received another warning from Roskomnadzor,” Novaya Gazeta’s editorial board wrote in a statement. After that, we will suspend the publication of the newspaper on the Internet and in print until the end of the “special operation on the territory of Ukraine”.
The editorial board noted that the newspaper’s license could be revoked because it had received two warnings from Roskomnadzor. She received her first warning last week.
Muratov, from Received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 For his efforts to uphold press freedoms in Russia, he decided to continue publishing Novaya Gazeta while complying with Roskomnadzor’s directive prohibiting journalists from describing the conflict as a “war” or “invasion”.
While other outlets such as the Echo of Moscow and TV Rain were banned from Russia, Novaya Gazeta continued to report on the war and the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy. It is one of the only Russian news outlets to have a reporter in Ukraine sending messages about the impact of the war on Ukrainians.
“I want to fully express my solidarity with Novaya Gazeta, her journalists and editor-in-chief,” wrote Alexei Venediktov, the former editor of the Echo of Moscow. “I hope you will soon return to your readers, and therefore to me.”