Novaya Gazeta

On 26 November 2001, Novaya Gazeta published an article by Oleg Lurie stating that the management of the International Industrial Bank, headed by Sergey Pugachyov, had been involved in money laundering in the Bank of New York.[6] Pugachyov's bank brought a libel suit against the newspaper, citing financial losses, as a number of its customers had allegedly changed the terms of their accounts in a way which made the bank lose money because of the publication. On 28 February 2002, the bank won the case in Moscow's Basmanny municipal court and was awarded 15 million rubles (about $500,000) in lost revenue, an unprecedented sum for Russian newspapers that might undermine the very existence of Novaya Gazeta, especially as on 22 February Novaya Gazeta had been ordered by the same Basmanny court to pay about $1 million for a corruption allegation against the Krasnodar Krai's top judge.

In April, the decision on the International Industrial Bank case was reconfirmed by a court. However, in an article of 27 May 2002,[7] Yulia Latynina, a Novaya Gazeta journalist, revealed that the bank's three customers named in the lawsuit were its subsidiaries or otherwise controlled by its board of directors, and claimed that Novaya Gazeta had requested the opening of a criminal fraud investigation into the activities of the bank. As a result, in June 2002 the International Industrial Bank renounced its claim to the compensation.[8][9]

Yury Shchekochikhin, a renowned journalist and deputy in the State Duma, had also worked for the newspaper as an investigative journalist and had been a deputy Editor-in-Chief until he died after a mysterious and severe allergy on 3 July 2003. Some of his contributions published in Novaya Gazeta were related to the investigation of the Three Whales Corruption Scandal.

In 2004, the newspaper printed seven articles by columnist Georgy Rozhnov, which accused Sergey Kiriyenko of embezzling US$4.8 billion of International Monetary Fund funds in 1998 when he was Prime Minister of Russia.[10] The newspaper based the accusations on a letter allegedly written to Colin Powell and signed by U.S. Congressmen Philip Crane, Mike Pence, Charlie Norwood, Dan Burton and Henry Bonilla and posted on the website of the American Defense Council.[11] The newspaper went on to claim that Kiriyenko had used some of the embezzled funds to purchase real estate in the United States. It was later revealed that the letter was a prank concocted by The eXile.[11] In response, Kiriyenko sued Novaya Gazeta and Rozhnov for libel, and in passing judgement in favour of Kiriyenko the court ordered Novaya Gazeta to retract all publications relating to the accusations and went on to say that the newspaper "is obliged to publish only officially proven information linking Mr Kiriyenko with embezzlement."[10]

Igor Domnikov was well known in Novaya Gazeta among his colleagues for his witty essays and acerbic tone. Journalist was attacked on his way to his Moscow apartment, near doorway, on 12 May 2000, hit with a hard object, presumably a hammer by unknown, then lying unconscious in pool of blood found by a neighbor; Igor Domnikov was delivered to hospital with scull and brain injuries, underwent surgery, but remained in coma, died from the injuries on 16 July 2000. Suspected in the murder 5 members of a gang was arrested in August 2007, sentenced to prison terms in range from 18 years to life for Igor Domnikov murder as well as other crimes.[12] On 11 March 2015, Former Deputy Governor of Lipetsk Oblast Sergei Dorovskoi was charged by Investigative Committee of Russia as inciter of the murder, but Sergei Dorovskoi never was punished because of crime time oblivion (15 years since murder).[13][14] Investigation found that Igor Domnikov had written a series of reports about life in Lipetsk region in 1999-2000, where journalist criticized the local government for corruption, that was the motive for Sergei Dorovskoi to incite other to kill the journalist.[15]

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was critical of Russia's actions in Chechnya, wrote for Novaya Gazeta until her assassination on 7 October 2006. Politkovskaya wrote in an essay that the editors received: "Visitors every day in our editorial office who have nowhere else to bring their troubles, because the Kremlin finds their stories off-message, so that the only place they can be aired is in our newspaper, Novaya Gazeta."[16]

Journalist and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov was shot and killed in Moscow on 19 January 2009 while leaving a press conference about his last minute appeal against the early release of Yuri Budanov, a former Russian military officer convicted for kidnapping and aggravated murder of a young Chechen woman.[17] Anastasia Baburova, a freelance journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a member of Autonomous Action, was with Markevlov at the time and was also killed. Racist groups praised Markelov's killing on the Internet, but it is unclear whether they were behind it.

Natalya Estemirova, human rights researcher and lawyer who lived in Chechen Republic, had met sometimes well-known journalist Anna Politkovskaya and lawyer Stanislav Markelov, because they all were investigating crimes in Chechnya and defending victims rights, she also wrote reports in Novaya Gazeta. Natalya Estemirova was kidnapped on 22 July 2009 in the Chechen Capital City of Grozny and two hours later killed in neighboring Ingushetia Republic.[18]

On 13 April 2009, the newspaper was granted the first-ever print interview in a Russian publication with President Dmitri Medvedev, discussing issues such as civil society and the social contract, transparency of public officials and Internet development.[19]

On 26 January 2010, the paper's web site was subjected to a denial of service attack and effectively taken offline.[20] As of 1 February 2010, the site was still inaccessible. At the peak of the attack the server was receiving 1.5 million connections per second.[21] The newspaper maintained its online presence by publishing articles on its LiveJournal page.[22] On 7 April 2011, the web site was targeted again with the same botnet that appears to be used in a large scale attack on LiveJournal that hosts many opposition blogs.[23][24][25][26]

On 25 July 2014, the paper opened with "Vergeef ons, Nederland" / "Прости, Голландия" ("Forgive us, Netherlands" in both Dutch and Russian), in response to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disaster.[27]

In early 2016 the newspaper published an article alleging existence of a so-called "Blue whale" game, seeking to cause Russian youngsters to commit suicide. The publication caused a moral panic to sweep Russia.[28]

After Novaya Gazeta published an investigation by journalist Denis Korotkov about a Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin,[29] in October 2018, Denis Korotkov and the editor-in-chief at Novaya Gazeta were the target of threatening deliveries of a severed ram's head and funeral flowers to the paper's offices. The style of the threat resembled others by Kremlin-linked Yevgeny Prigozhin.[30]

Novaya Gazeta published reports about persecution of gays in Chechnya in 2017, where 3 men were allegedly killed, and dozens detained and intimidated. After publication, the Chechen Government denied the existence of persecutions in the Republic.[31]

Newspaper published the report by Elena Milashina and the list of 27 Chechens killed on 26 January 2017. Newspaper also addressed the report and the list to the Russian Government service, Investigative Committee of Russia, and asked the Committee to investigate the data about the published list. While Novaya Gazeta calling names of 27 Chechens killed in the list, newspaper supposed that real number might be even more, of 56 Chechens killed that night. The newspaper said that the allegedly killed Chechens were citizens of the Republic of Chechnya, who were detained by Governmental security service, put in custody inside a guarded territory owned by Traffic Police regiment in the City of Grozny, and executed on 26 January with gunfire (several men brutally killed by asphyxiation[32]) by State Security forces without filing any legal accusations.[33]