Masked security service officers raided the Moscow offices of Novaya Gazeta, the publication reported.
Officers are conducting a search of the premises, the outlet said. “We don’t know the reason — the editorial team’s lawyers are not being allowed into the office on Potapovsky Lane, where some of the staff are also present,” it said.
Lawyer Kaloy Akhilgov wrote that he had traveled to the Novaya Gazeta office but was turned away by masked officers, who told him he was “too notorious.” “What we’ve been able to establish: the search is being conducted by the Russian federal investigating authority, the Investigative Committee’s Moscow branch; it most likely concerns a criminal case related to the publication’s articles,” he wrote in his Telegram channel.
A law enforcement source told the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that the searches were connected to an investigation into the illegal use of personal data. The source provided no further details.
Novaya Gazeta suspended operations in late March 2022. Some journalists left Russia and launched Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent Russian news outlet, while those who remained began publishing a print magazine. In September 2022, a court acting on a complaint from Roskomnadzor revoked the licenses of both Novaya Gazeta and the magazine. The regulator said the editorial team had failed to submit its charter to the authorities within the required deadline — a requirement that had been added to the law several years after Novaya Gazeta was founded.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.