Russian law enforcement agents on Thursday raided the offices of the Novaya Gazeta independent media outlet, the paper said, adding that a reporter was being questioned by the police.
Novaya Gazeta was for years Russia’s leading investigative independent outlet and was targeted heavily for its critical reporting and investigations into human rights abuses.
“At around 12.00 pm (0900 GMT), security officers in masks started carrying out investigative actions at the editorial office of Novaya Gazeta,” the outlet said on social media.
“We don’t know the reason. The outlet’s lawyers are not being allowed into the office, where some staff members are also present.”
Russian state news agencies reported, citing anonymous law enforcement sources, that the raid was related to one of the paper’s top journalists Oleg Roldugin.
Novaya Gazeta said that “after morning searches in his flat, he (Roldugin) was taken to Moscow’s main investigative directorate of the ministry of internal affairs for questioning” without a lawyer. It said it could not confirm whether the raid on the outlet’s office was linked to Roldugin.
The investigative journalist reported on corruption in Russia’s top brass, including former President Dmitry Medvedev and the influential head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov.
An AFP reporter in Moscow saw two vans of Russia’s Investigative Committee parked in a yard outside the offices and staff stood inside the entrance foyer.
The paper’s then editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression” at the helm of the paper.
Several Novaya Gazeta reporters have been murdered in killings widely seen as retribution.
They include Anna Politkovskaya, who spent years investigating allegations of abuses by Russia’s military during its campaigns in Chechnya.
She was found dead in her apartment block on President Vladimir Putin’s birthday in October 2006.
The paper, which used to be published several times a week, cut down production inside the country after Russia introduced military censorship at the start of its offensive on Ukraine in 2022.
