Novaya Gazeta, for three decades the best-known independent newspaper in Russia, has announced it is closing down, saying the authorities and the security services left it no way to continue.

The editorial board published a statement on Friday under the title “We were killed.” It said the newspaper no longer exists and that the Russian authorities and intelligence services had forced the editorial team to cease operations.

Editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov set a date in a video statement. “On November 9 we will turn off the lights in our home, where we have lived for 30 years. We will shut down the servers and leave,” he said.

The paper said it had been stripped of everything it needed to operate. “We carried on as long as we could, but we were evicted from our home and our donations platform that allowed us to receive financial support from our readers has been shut down,” it said. “We have been stripped of all our resources. Entirely.” Its licence was revoked and access to its website inside Russia was blocked.

The pressure also reached its journalists. Investigative reporter Oleg Roldugin was arrested in April and charged with unlawful access to computerised information. Sokolov was detained for questioning on October 15 and his home searched in connection with the same case.

Novaya Gazeta was founded in 1993, launched with the help of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who put part of his Nobel Peace Prize award towards it. It built a reputation for investigating corruption and abuses by the Russian state, at heavy cost: the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders noted that six of its journalists and staff have been murdered, its newsroom raided and its reporters prosecuted. Its co-founder Dmitry Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with the Philippine journalist Maria Ressa.

The paper suspended its print and online editions in Russia in 2022 after a warning from the media regulator Roskomnadzor, as Moscow criminalised reporting that discredited the military. Friday’s announcement winds up what remained. An offshoot founded by exiled staff, Novaya Gazeta Europe, is based in Riga and continues to publish, though Moscow has designated it an “undesirable organisation.”

One final issue will be published, the paper told CNN. “After that, we’ll take a pause, reflect, and come up with a new life for ourselves.”

Hiru News carried the story in Sri Lanka, crediting Reuters.