Opinion
A newspaper is not shut down by a ban alone
Novaya Gazeta was not banned by a single decision: it lost its offices, its donations and its banks. It is a warning to every country that press freedom is defended in the details as well.
By ANN Newsroom · Newsroom
October 30, 2026, 19:00 · Updated 19:02 · 2 min read
“They killed us,” the Novaya Gazeta newsroom wrote on Friday, announcing that on Nov. 9 it will switch off the lights and servers in the building where it has worked for 30 years. The newspaper founded in 1993, which openly opposed the invasion of Ukraine and whose co-founder Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, is ceasing to exist. Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov attributes the decision to the Russian authorities and special services.
What stands out is the method. In 2022 the paper had its license revoked and was declared a “foreign agent.” This year, according to the newsroom, it received an eviction order from its Moscow headquarters, the platform for reader donations was shut down and banks cut it off following rules that, it says, are set by the FSB. In October Sokolov's home was searched, while his colleague Oleg Roldugin is under house arrest awaiting trial.
In other words, a media outlet can be extinguished without a single spectacular decision: through a lease, a bank account, an investigation that drags on. Along with the newsroom, the museum of Anna Politkovskaya, the murdered journalist, is also closing. When such a newsroom is lost, it is not only its journalists who lose, but also the readers left without an independent source of information.
Albania is not Russia, and a direct comparison would be unfair. But the lesson applies everywhere. In the toll of the protests in Tirana, Minister Demo cited about 20 injured bystanders, journalists among them, while Police Director Skënder Hita said claims that journalists were obstructed are taken seriously. Seriousness is shown by results, not statements.
Our proposal: the State Police and the Police Oversight Agency should publish within 30 days a list of every case in which a journalist was injured or obstructed during the protests, with the status of the investigation for each. And Albanian newsrooms, whatever their editorial positions, should publicly support their Russian colleagues, as independent journalists did in the statement published by Meduza. Solidarity among journalists is not partisanship.
