Novaya Gazeta was destroyed by the Russian state for telling the truth, but its journalism's spirit is indestructible
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/elena-kostyuchenko. "Moscow has shuttered Novaya Gazeta – we told the truth and we paid the price | Elena Kostyuchenko | The Guardian." November 7, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
Russia's authorities have forced out the country's best-known independent newspaper because it exposed things the state wanted hidden. The author, who worked there for 17 years, says the paper saved lives and kept going despite killings and threats. She believes the need to know the truth is part of human nature, so the paper's spirit will outlast its closure.
Conclusion
Novaya Gazeta was shut down by the Russian state as punishment for its truthful journalism, but the spirit of its work will live on because the human drive to know the truth is innate and indestructible.
Premises
- Novaya Gazeta reported on the most important and most suppressed subjects (Chechnya, Beslan, corruption, torture, the war in Ukraine), exposing realities that official narratives concealed from the public.
- Its journalism had real-world impact: investigations became the basis of criminal cases, wrongly convicted people were helped to acquittal, and lives were saved.
- The state responded with escalating repression: six staff killed, threats and beatings, loss of its licence, website blocking, a newsroom raid, an arrest, a 'foreign agent' designation, eviction, and cutting off of donations, with the threat of an 'extremist' label that would expose all staff to jail.
- Staff kept working inside Russia for four and a half years at great personal risk, showing the paper's commitment to truth and not to power or safety.
- The drive to know the truth, even when it hurts, is built into human beings and is a condition of survival.
Assumptions
- The closure was caused by the state's intent to silence the paper, not by neutral legal or financial factors.
- Novaya Gazeta's reporting was accurate and truthful, as the author portrays it.
- The author's personal experience and the paper's record are representative of its overall character.
- An innate human drive for truth is sufficient to ensure that a journalistic tradition survives institutional destruction.
- Former Novaya staff and the outlets they now work at will carry on its tradition.