UN human rights chief Volker Türk deplores the forced closure of Novaya Gazeta

30 October 2026

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on 30 October that he was deeply concerned and saddened that Novaya Gazeta is being forced to close. He called the end of the respected independent Russian newspaper another devastating blow for the independent media still left in the Russian Federation. Türk said pressure on the press there has grown sharply since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, through restrictive laws, tighter State control and harassment of journalists. He recalled that the paper's reporter Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 after covering human rights violations in Chechnya. He asked the Russian authorities to allow free and open debate.