We Have Been Killed

We have been killed.

On November 9th, we will turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave. The newspaper no longer exists. The Russian authorities and the Russian security services have forced our editorial team to cease its operations.

The three decades we have spent together were mostly happy. Our readers our friends, our articles and our films gave us meaning and hope. At times, however, these years were also desperately sad and bitter. It was under the current political regime — not during the chaotic 1990s — that six of our our colleagues were murdered for fulfilling their professional and civic duties: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, and Natalia Estemirova.

We carried on as long as we could, but we were evicted from our home and our donations platform that allowed us to receive finanical suppport from our readers has been shut down.

We have been stripped of all our resources. Entirely. .

This is a coordinated campaign. Banks which have cut us off tell us they are merely following internal corporate rules. They don’t tell us that the rules they follow are set by the FSB, the state security service, embeded in every organsiation. They see the country as their personal fiefdom.

Since the start of the “special miltiary operation” in Ukraine and the introduction of criminal chages for “discreding the Russian army” we can not report on the most critical and tragic events of our time. Cenosrhip applies to virtually every sphere of civic life.

Our website has been blocked, our licence revoked, our printing press seized. We have been banned from publishing our newspaper in any form. Many of ourcolleagues have been forced to flee the country.

Dmitry Muratov*, our publisher and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had acid paint thrown into his face. He has nearly lost his sight. The pepperators were let go.

The authorites labelled him and the whole paper “foreign agents”.

In Chechnya, our columnist Elena Milashina was abducted and beaten almost to death.

Oleg Roldugin, one of our editors, was arrested and now faces a trial for gathering information.

Our offices have been raided, the apparmtent of Sergei Sokolov, our editor-in-chief searched.

For nearly five years of ***, we managed to keep working while beling completely encircled by the security services.

Now it’s over. We have found ourselves in a "kill zone."

This is not just our own story; it is the story of a country and a society that are being systematically crushed. This is the work of the FSB, the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office, and others who have usurped power. A military dictatorship has effectively been established.

They claim to be defending the constitutional order. In reality, it is an unconstitutional order. Because the Constitution has been raped, tortured, gagged, and thrown into prison for a very long time — much like thousands of the country’s citizens who simply followed its provisions.ens of thousands of our citizens have been forced to flee the country, leaving their homes behind and heading into the unknown.

Stop comforting yourselves by saying “this isn’t Stalin’s 1930s”, or arguing that repressions are merely “digital” in nature. These are state-sponsored repressions. It is human beings — not digits — who are dying in prison cells. Period.

Human life has lost its meaningThe very word “Constitution” evokeslaughter — even from judges. Especially from judges. No one believes that this is the country’s supreme law, or that the president swore an oath upon it. Even the state propaganda stopped referring to the president as the “guarantor of the Constitution.”

Human rights and freedoms have been abolished in our country, and defending them is now seen as a crime. Elections and elected governing bodies have been effectively dismantled. Civil society has been crushed Freedom of conscience and human dignity have been trampled upon. Private life has been turned inside out by filthy hands.

But true treason is when a state betrays its own Constitution. And this betrayal is an ongoing crime — one unfolding right now before the eyes of the entire world.

The killing of Novaya Gazeta is yet another piece of evidence.

For all these years, this is exactly what we wrote about — for as long as we could That is why they killed us.

Thank you to everyone who hears us.

The Editorial Staff

P.S. One final issue will be published.

*Власти РФ считают «иноагентами»