Russia’s last independent newspaper has closed its Moscow office, ending a decades-long effort to report on corruption, war, and abuses of power while the Kremlin steadily tightened the screws.
Novaya Gazeta was established in 1993 with money from Mikhail Gorbachev’s Nobel Peace Prize. The newspaper quickly built its reputation through investigative reporting on stories that other Russian outlets would not touch, including government corruption and the consolidation of economic power during the 1990s.
Its coverage of the second Chechen war cemented that reputation. Star reporter Anna Politkovskaya reported from the ground and helped make the paper one of the few Russian publications willing to challenge Vladimir Putin, a former K.G.B. agent who had become the country’s president. Politkovskaya was assassinated on Putin’s birthday in 2006. Novaya Gazeta continued its investigations, and longtime editor in chief Dmitri Muratov received the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin’s crackdown on criticism of the “special military operation” eventually made continued publication nearly impossible. On February 25, 2022, the day after the invasion began, Novaya Gazeta published an edition in Russian and Ukrainian that condemned Putin’s war as “madness.” After military censorship laws took effect on March 4, the paper used blurred images and blank spaces where material had been removed.
The pressure was not limited to paperwork. In April, Muratov was nearly blinded when someone attacked him with a mixture of paint and acetone at a Moscow train station. Police allowed the attackers to go free, even after Novaya Gazeta conducted a detailed investigation to identify them. Authorities then focused on stripping the newspaper of its print media license. Nothing says “competitive media landscape” quite like making sure the competition cannot legally publish.
After almost five years of imposing intolerable conditions on the paper’s remaining staff in Russia, the Kremlin delivered its final blow. The entire organization was branded a “foreign agent,” a Soviet-era term revived by Putin’s administration. Banks cut off reader donations, which by then were the paper’s only source of income. The newspaper also received an eviction notice forcing it out of the Moscow office it had occupied for nearly 30 years.
On Monday, Novaya Gazeta closed that office, saying it could no longer continue reporting amid the state pressure. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tried to minimize the significance, describing the closure as part of a “rotational process” in a fiercely competitive media landscape. That explanation may work inside the Kremlin, but it does not explain why the remaining newspapers reportedly carry no criticism of Putin or the war in Ukraine.
BBC Russia correspondent Steven Rosenberg noted that Russians can still find plenty of newspapers for sale. What they cannot find is meaningful criticism of the president or his war. A press that is allowed to print everything except inconvenient facts is not free press. It is government-approved wallpaper.
Source: HotAir
Leave a Comment