Novaya Gazeta silenced: Europe must offer a lasting refuge to Russia's free press

The facts

After more than thirty years of existence, the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta announced its closure on 30 October. In a video posted on YouTube, its editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, says the authorities and the security services forced the newsroom to stop working, according to AFP.

Novaya Gazeta ceases to exist. — Sergei Sokolov, editor-in-chief

The pressure built up over a few weeks. According to AFP, Moscow placed the newspaper on its list of "foreign agents" in September, a status that imposes heavy administrative constraints. The system that allowed it to receive donations from readers was then blocked, depriving the newsroom of all funding. Euromaidan Press reports that the banks cited their internal rules. Finally, the newsroom must leave its Moscow offices on Potapovsky Lane on 9 November. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, citing The Economist, the eviction notice was served on 19 October.

The judicial side weighs heavily too. Again according to AFP, police searched Sergei Sokolov's home in mid-October and questioned him in a case targeting journalist Oleg Roldugin, who is under house arrest awaiting trial for the illegal collection and dissemination of personal data, an offence punishable by six years in prison. Novaya Gazeta Europe says the management feared the newspaper being designated an "extremist organisation", which would expose its journalists to arrest.

Founded in 1993 with the support of Mikhail Gorbachev, the paper investigated crimes by the Russian army, corruption among the elites and the Wagner group. Six of its journalists and contributors have been killed, including Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. Its former editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. In 2022, after the adoption of laws punishing any criticism of the army, part of the team went into exile to found Novaya Gazeta Europe, since declared "undesirable" by Moscow.

The positions at stake

The newsroom speaks of a killing. "They killed us," it writes in a statement quoted by AFP. Dmitry Muratov told the agency that this closure was part of the Kremlin's military campaign, the newspaper being, in his view, a target the regime intends to destroy. Reporters Without Borders hailed a symbol of free journalism, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was "deeply concerned", calling on Moscow to end the repression.

No official reaction from the Kremlin was reported in the dispatches consulted. The Russian authorities have long presented the "foreign agents" legislation as a transparency tool against outside interference, comparable, in their view, to the foreign influence laws adopted elsewhere. The argument deserves to be heard for what it is: yet no democratic state forbids a newspaper from receiving donations from its own readers, or evicts it from its offices at the very moment its editor-in-chief is being questioned by the police.

In Europe, another, more serious objection is circulating: supporting Russian media in exile would be costly for a limited audience, and could make them look, in the eyes of the Russian public, like instruments of Western chancelleries. The European Commission has made a cautious choice. According to its press release of 23 March 2026, it is devoting 3 million euros to the third edition of its programme supporting exiled journalists from Russia and Belarus, extended this year to Ukrainian journalists based in the Union.

The analysis

The end of Novaya Gazeta does not change the military balance of power. It changes something else: the possibility, for Russians who have stayed in the country, of reading an independent investigation written from Moscow. With this newspaper disappears the last major critical outlet still working from the inside, according to Euromaidan Press. Silence imposed on a society is never a purely domestic matter. A population deprived of free information is easier to mobilise for war, and Europe bears the consequences directly.

The Gaullist tradition has always distinguished Russia, a nation with which we will one day have to talk again, from the regime that governs it. Defending Russian journalists means betting precisely on that Russia of tomorrow. It is also a matter of consistency: Europe cannot invoke international law and freedom of expression against Moscow while leaving free Russian voices to survive on budgets of a few million euros, renegotiated every year through calls for proposals.

France has assets. It hosts the headquarters of Reporters Without Borders, has in France Médias Monde a respected international broadcaster, and can issue protection visas. But these tools remain scattered, and exiled media often depend on private foundations to make ends meet.

Conclusion

The closure of Novaya Gazeta calls for more than a statement of regret. France could propose to its partners a multi-year European fund for the independent press in exile, with governance that guarantees the editorial independence of its beneficiaries, and make it easier for threatened journalists to settle durably. The question is simple: does Europe still want Russians to be able to read something other than their government's propaganda?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.