Russia’s oldest independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta Shuts Down after 33 years

On 9 November 2026, the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta closed its Moscow newsroom after 33 years. Its editor, Sergei Sokolov, stood by the office plaque, now covered with a sign that read “Novaya Gazeta lived here.” The paper said state pressure had made it impossible to carry on. Its exit cost readers in Russia a newsroom that had investigated corruption, war and human rights abuses from within the country.

What finally shut the Moscow newsroom?

The paper lost its office and the donations it relied on. The closure came in stages. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, new laws threatened prison terms for reporting the authorities deemed false or said discredited the military. Novaya Gazeta stopped printing in Russia and kept publishing online. Its print and media licences were revoked that year, and its website was blocked in Russia.

In September 2026, Russian authorities designated the paper a “foreign agent,” a legal label that requires those it targets to mark their publications and comply with restrictions. The newsroom said it was ordered out of its premises, and Reuters reported that banks stopped processing reader donations. On closure day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov portrayed the shutdown as routine turnover in a competitive media market.

Why was this paper important?

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993 with help from Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, who put some of his Nobel Peace Prize money into it. Its reporters covered the wars in Chechnya and exposed abuses of power. Investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who documented abuses in Chechnya, was murdered in 2006. Co-founder Dmitry Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for defending freedom of expression.

Can readers still find Novaya Gazeta’s work?

Yes. An archive on GitHub, a site for storing and sharing files, saved nearly 94,000 articles published between 2000 and 2026. It preserved the text, dates and bylines. Former staff also run Novaya Gazeta Europe, a separate publication founded in Latvia in 2022. Moscow has banned it as an “undesirable organisation” and blocks its site. The archive can tell readers what the Moscow paper uncovered. New reporting still depends on journalists being able to gather facts and reach readers.

Who still reads the printed paper?

In the US, older readers are much more likely to. In Pew Research Center’s August 2026 survey, 22% of US adults said they got news from printed newspapers or news magazines at least sometimes. Among people 65 and older, the share was 35%. Among adults under 30, it was 14%. Just 6% of adults said they got news from print often.

The Reuters Institute found another reason the habit is hard to rebuild. Among surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds who had skipped print newspapers in the previous week, 56% said they had never read one regularly. Many publishers are trying to recruit people who never had the habit in the first place.

Where are readers getting news instead?

Increasingly, they find it in social and video feeds. In the Reuters Institute’s 2026 online survey across 48 markets, 54% of respondents used social media and video networks for news, compared with 51% who used news organisations’ own websites or apps. People could use both. A newspaper’s reporting can reach someone through a clip in a feed, even if that person never visits its homepage.

Turning that attention into revenue is a separate problem. Across 20 markets the institute tracks for payments, 17% said they had paid for online news in the past year. Print still brings in money, too. Among publishers surveyed by the World Association of News Publishers, print advertising and circulation together accounted for about 44% of income.

Which other papers and magazines have shut down?

Two cases show what state pressure can do. Hong Kong’s Stand News closed after a police raid in December 2021. Staff wiped the online archive that night. Guatemala’s investigative daily elPeriódico stopped printing in December 2022 and stopped publishing online in May 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists attributed the closure to legal and financial pressure on the paper and its founder.

Other newsrooms ran out of money. South Africa’s New Frame stopped publishing in 2022 after a funding crisis. Britain’s gal-dem, a magazine that gave space to women and non-binary people of colour, folded in 2023. Its team said shrinking brand budgets and slow growth in paid membership made it hard to keep going. In the US, the nonprofit Houston Landing closed in May 2025 after struggling to raise the money it needed to continue. It had published entirely online.

Some titles change format or return under new owners. South Africa’s Daily Sun dropped print in December 2024 and kept publishing online. GameStop shut Game Informer in 2024, but a new owner revived the gaming magazine in 2025 and brought back print subscriptions.

What does a town lose when its paper closes?

It can lose the people who regularly show up to cover it. In Australia’s Broken Hill, subscriptions to the Barrier Truth had fallen. Then its press broke, and copies had to be printed three hours away. The paper closed in April 2024. A different weekly, the Broken Hill Times, began publishing that October.

Many communities go longer without a replacement. Northwestern University’s Medill School counted 238 US counties in 2026 with no locally based source of professional local news. That measure is about who is there to cover a place. A resident can still scroll through national headlines and struggle to find out what their town council decided.

What can India count today?

Copies, for a start. Delhi’s Hindi evening paper Sandhya Times put out its last print edition on 31 August 2026 after nearly 46 years. Meanwhile, audited figures reported by exchange4media put Dainik Jagran at about 24.5 lakh qualifying copies per issue in January to June 2026, up 4.1% year on year. Malayala Manorama was down 6.4% over the same period. Those figures measure circulation. A single copy can be read by several people.

When will India have a clearer picture of who reads what?

The Indian Readership Survey is set to return after a six-year gap. The Media Research Users Council India plans to count reading across print, e-papers, apps and websites. Trade outlets reported on 6 November that the first phase will cover two states, including a metro, with results expected within six months of the study’s start. The question that release can begin to answer is whether the same newspaper reaches people on paper, on a screen or in both places.