Russia’s last independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta suspends work

Moscow, Mar 28 (EFE).- Russia’s independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta said Monday it was suspending its work until what the Kremlin has called the “special military operation” in Ukraine was over.

Novaya Gazeta said it decided to suspend its work “temporarily” after receiving a second warning Monday from the state communications regulator Roskomnadzor about its reporting.

“We have received two warnings from Roskomnadzor. We’d better close down, because if we receive a third warning they may withdraw our license and that would mean our disappearance,” Nadezhda Prusenkova, Novaya Gazeta’s head of press service, told Efe.

The newspaper was the last independent media outlet still operating in Russia.

It had already stopped reporting on Ukraine after the Kremlin introduced a new media law that threatens journalists with up to 15 years in jail for reporting “fake news” on the war in Ukraine.

The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov was a co-winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Russian authorities have already shut down two other media outlets critical of the Kremlin; radio station Echo of Moscow and the TV channel Dozhd. EFE

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