Putin cleans house: editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta taken in for questioning after search of his home

On Thursday, a search was conducted at the Moscow home of Sergei Sokolov, editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, after which he was taken to the Investigative Committee for questioning. The paper itself reported this on Telegram. According to the editorial staff, contact with the editor-in-chief was lost shortly after noon on Thursday, when his phone was switched off just before an editorial meeting he was due to chair. The paper later wrote that the search had ended, that the editor-in-chief was being taken to the Investigative Committee, and that a lawyer had been sent to him. AFP and several international news agencies reported an arrest, but according to Novaya Gazeta and Meduza, it is for now a matter of questioning. Whether Sokolov is being questioned as a suspect or as a witness, and whether he will be taken into custody, had not been established by Thursday evening.

According to law-enforcement sources cited by the Russian business newspaper RBC, the search is linked to a criminal case opened in the spring, though it was not disclosed which one. According to the Telegram channel Baza, which is close to the authorities, the proceedings concern the unlawful use of personal data and also involve Oleg Roldugin, a columnist for Novaya Gazeta, who was taken into custody on 10 April after a search of the paper's editorial office. According to Meduza, he is charged with the unlawful collective use and storage of personal data based on prior collusion, while Novaya Gazeta Europe wrote of a charge related to unauthorized access to computer data. According to a Meduza summary, the BBC linked the case to an anonymous Telegram channel called Bolshe, chem Fakt (“More Than a Fact”), which Roldugin ran. Among other things, the channel published data on the business jet flights of former President Dmitry Medvedev and billionaires Alexei Mordashov and Vladimir Yevtushenkov, and Roldugin himself wrote about these flights in his own investigative articles. The journalist was moved to house arrest in early June. Sokolov is an experienced journalist who became editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta in 2023, after his predecessor, Dmitry Muratov, resigned in order to challenge in court his designation as a “foreign agent.” According to AFP, Sokolov was already taken into custody in 2024 over an article, and proceedings were opened against him for “discrediting” the army, which the international press-freedom organization Reporters Without Borders condemned at the time.

Novaya Gazeta is one of the last bastions of independent Russian journalism. For decades the paper published investigative reports on the wars in Chechnya, corruption and human rights violations; several of its staff members died violent deaths, including Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 — Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, most of the editorial staff left Russia in March 2022 and founded Novaya Gazeta Europe in Latvia, but Sokolov stayed in Russia and continued working at the Moscow paper. Since then, Russian authorities have revoked Novaya Gazeta's media license, confiscated its printing equipment, blocked its website, and designated its staff as “foreign agents.” Despite strict censorship and constant official harassment, the paper continues to appear online in Russia.

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