Wire reporting: (AP, via KSAT)

Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow investigative newspaper that operated for more than three decades, said Friday it will cease work on Nov. 9 after an eviction order and the cutoff of reader donations, which it blamed on Russian authorities and security services^1,3,10.

A statement on the paper’s site said the newspaper is no more and that the authorities and special services forced the staff to stop, the BBC reported¹. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov said in a video that on Nov. 9 the paper will turn off the lights in the home where it lived for 30 years, shut the servers and leave^3,10,14.

The paper said it had been stripped of resources in what it called a coordinated campaign, including eviction from headquarters on Potapovsky Lane and the shutdown of the donations system used by readers^3,10. Sokolov told Bereg, in an interview republished by Meduza, that the building is owned by Moscow City Hall, that staff were given a month to leave, and that banks cited internal rules he said were imposed from outside⁴.

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 and was known for investigations of corruption and official abuse^1,14. CBS News said former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev helped fund early equipment from his Nobel award¹⁰. Euronews said the first computers were purchased with Gorbachev’s help³.

The BBC said six journalists connected with the paper were killed, including Anna Politkovskaya, shot 20 years ago this month¹. CBS News said her convicted killer was pardoned in 2023 after joining the military to fight in Ukraine¹⁰. Dmitry Muratov, a founder and longtime editor, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 and was later designated a foreign agent, the BBC reported^1,10.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the paper faced new wartime speech laws, lost its licence, had its site blocked and saw staff labeled foreign agents^1,3. Euronews said it paused in March 2022 after Roskomnadzor warnings, later resumed, and that some journalists left to found Novaya Gazeta Europe in Latvia, a separate outlet^3,17.

Pressure intensified this year. The BBC and DW said police searched the newsroom, veteran reporter Oleg Roldugin was arrested on a computer-access charge, and Sokolov was questioned and had his home searched^1,14. DW said Roldugin pleaded not guilty and that Reporters Without Borders urged an end to judicial harassment of the paper’s journalists¹⁴. The Kyiv Independent said reporter Elena Milashina was beaten in Chechnya in 2023¹⁷.

Sokolov said about 50 staff plus freelancers remain, that work under the Novaya Gazeta name has stopped, and that the paper has closed and returned twice before⁴. He declined to comment on an Economist account of unidentified people entering the office or on whether an extremist designation was discussed⁴. Independent journalists, in a text published by Meduza and cited by Euronews, called Novaya the most important independent publication in modern Russia³.

The accounts reviewed did not include an on-record Kremlin reply to the closure announcement^1,3,4,10. Whether any successor title can operate inside Russia, and what happens to remaining staff, was not settled⁴.