A Russian court on Monday effectively killed off Novaya Gazeta, one of the country’s last remaining independent media outlets, over a bullshit red tape issue, Reuters reports. Helmed by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Dmitry Muratov, Novaya Gazeta will continue to publish on the web internationally, but its days serving up news inside Russia are over.
Muratov told reporters outside the court the decision was “a political hit job, without the slightest legal basis,” and vowed to appeal. The Putin regime’s media regulator Rozkomnadzor had brought the case to strip Novaya’s operating license over missing paperwork from a 2006 ownership sale.