--- title: "Novaya Gazeta Leaves Potapovsky Lane, Closed by a ‘Foreign Agent’ Label After 33 Years" description: "Russia’s best-known independent paper held its last editorial meeting on Monday. The Kremlin called the closure normal turnover" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-11-09T18:21:38Z modified: 2026-11-09T23:06:47Z url: https://rews.cc/a/novaya-gazeta-leaves-potapovsky-lane-closed-by-a-foreign-age-ef773a language: en tags: ["russia", "media", "freedom-of-speech", "ukraine", "press", "world"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Novaya Gazeta Leaves Potapovsky Lane, Closed by a ‘Foreign Agent’ Label After 33 Years *Russia’s best-known independent paper held its last editorial meeting on Monday. The Kremlin called the closure normal turnover* By Jan Sokol · November 9, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/novaya-gazeta-leaves-potapovsky-lane-closed-by-a-foreign-age-ef773a ## In brief - Novaya Gazeta held its last editorial meeting and closed its Moscow newsroom on 9 November 2026 - The paper had worked from its Potapovsky Lane office for about 30 years and was founded in 1993 - Russia labelled it a “foreign agent” in September 2026 after stripping its media licence in 2022 - Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the closure a normal turnover of media outlets - The UN rights chief, RSF, Amnesty International, the UK and Finland condemned the closure On Monday, 9 November 2026, the journalists of *Novaya Gazeta* met for the last time as an editorial staff and then shut their newsroom. The paper had already said last month that it was being forced to close. [Al Jazeera reported](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/9/russian-investigative-newspaper-novaya-gazeta-closes-citing-govt-clampdown) that the end came under pressure from the authorities, after Moscow classed the paper as a “foreign agent”, a label the Russian state uses to choke off dissent. *Novaya Gazeta* was one of the few outlets left inside Russia that still criticised the war against Ukraine. So it ended with a meeting, a final ordinary act of a newsroom. They met, and then the office was empty. ## The lane The office stood on Potapovsky Lane in central Moscow, and the paper’s staff had worked there for about 30 years. In late October came reports that it was being forced out of the building, [according to Meduza](https://meduza.io/en/news/2026/11/09/kremlin-spokesman-dmitry-peskov-calls-the-closure-of-independent-russian-newspaper-novaya-gazeta-a-normal-process-of-turnover), which put the paper’s life at 33 years. It was founded in 1993, as the Soviet Union came apart, and it became known for reporting on human rights abuses and documenting them. [Agence France-Presse, in a report carried by France 24](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20261109-independent-russian-novaya-gazeta-newspaper-shuts-newsroom), cited the Russian outlets Sota Vision and Ostorozhno Novosti, which reported the last meeting and the clearing of the office. Images published by Ostorozhno Novosti showed the editor-in-chief, Sergei Sokolov, taking down the photographs of the paper’s murdered reporters. One of those faces belongs to Anna Politkovskaya. She investigated alleged abuses by the military in Chechnya and criticised Vladimir Putin early on. In October 2006 she was found dead in her apartment block, on Putin’s birthday. The killings of the paper’s journalists are widely seen as punishment for their work. For years those photographs hung in the office. On the last day someone had to take them down by hand and carry them out. ## How a newspaper is unmade The paper did not die in one blow. It stopped printing in 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and that year Moscow’s Basmanny District Court took away its media licence. It carried on anyway. In September 2026 the authorities named it a “foreign agent.” Its journalists were detained and questioned. AFP described the label as “reminiscent of Soviet-era repression.” Around 30 October the paper announced it was closing. Sokolov, in an emotional video last month, did not dress it up. The paper, he said, had “been killed.” > “The Russian authorities -- the Russian special services -- have forced the editorial team to end its work.” A state like this seldom needs to ban a newspaper outright. Its tools are smaller and drier: a court order on a licence, a label in a register, a notice to vacate. Each one, taken alone, looks like administration. Put them in sequence and you have a sentence that no judge ever has to read aloud. That is a reflection, not a finding, but the order of events supports it. ## The view from the Kremlin On Monday reporters asked the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, about the claim by Dmitry Muratov, the paper’s co-founder and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, that *Novaya Gazeta* had been killed. Peskov declined to see a death. “It would be wrong to say that the era of independent Russian media is coming to an end,” he said, in AFP’s translation. AFP rendered his description of the closure as “a normal cycle of change.” Meduza, citing Vy Slushali, gave his words as “a normal, normal process of turnover,” together with a further line: “Of course, every year some media outlets close, and new ones take their place.” He also said, according to AFP: “The Russian media is highly diverse and is developing in a highly competitive environment.” Set those words beside the empty room on Potapovsky Lane. Over a career of practice, the official vocabulary has learned to describe a closure as weather, something that happens every year with nobody behind it. What the paper’s own editor described was the reverse: it had been pushed out, and he named who did the pushing. ## Abroad, statements The reaction from outside came in measured diplomatic language. In October the UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, called the closure “yet another devastating blow for remaining independent media in the Russian Federation.” Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International condemned it. The United Kingdom and Finland, co-chairs of the Media Freedom Coalition, said in a joint statement that it was “a stark reminder of the sustained pressure facing independent journalism in Russia,” and urged Moscow to “end the repression of independent media and journalists.” Censorship during the war in Ukraine has been unprecedented, AFP notes, and has pushed most of Russia’s independent media into exile. *Novaya Gazeta* was among the few that stayed in Moscow and kept its office and its address. For three decades the lane in central Moscow was where readers could find it, and where its enemies could find it too. As of Monday, the paper has no newsroom there.