Roskomnadzor issues official warning to Novaya Gazeta

Such a warning could become an opportunity for the authorities to close Russia’s largest independent newspaper.

Roskomnadzor said that Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, had not identified a non-governmental organization mentioned in an article as a “foreign agent.”

“Roskomnadzor issued an official written warning to the editors of Novaya Gazeta and the founder about the inadmissibility of violating the laws of the Russian Federation,” the service said.

The service did not disclose which non-governmental organization was involved.

If the media receives two warnings from “Roskomnadzor” during the year, the court may close it.

The Novaya Gazeta, co-founded in 1993 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, is the only major newspaper in Russia that still criticizes Russian President Vladimir Putin and his policies.

A spokeswoman for the newspaper told AFP they had not yet received a copy of the Roskomnadzor warning.

“Most likely it’s psychological pressure,” she added.

Muratov announced today that the Nobel Peace Prize gold medal has been returned to the Ukrainian Refugee Relief Fund and asked to refer to the auction houses that will put up the medal for sale.

The Russian authorities are actively cracking down on dissidents, independent journalists and activists. One of the repressive methods is the recognition of a non-governmental organization as a “foreign agent”, which brings with it negative associations and means increased control by the authorities.

Novaya Gazeta is not a “foreign agent”.

The newspaper announced in early March that it would delete content about Ukraine and work under “military censorship.” The Novaya Gazeta took such a step after a law was passed in Russia that effectively provided for imprisonment for covering Ukraine’s war.