MOSCOW -- The Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta says it has acted on a request by authorities and has removed investigative materials produced by the team of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny that suggest corruption among the country's top officials, including President Vladimir Putin.
Novaya gazeta said on its Telegram channel on February 3 that it had removed materials related to Navalny's investigative report about an extremely luxurious palace allegedly built for Putin near the Black Sea resort city of Gelendzhik last year, as well as a report on Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin's former son-in-law's business activities.
The move comes just four months after Novaya gazeta's editor in chief, Dmitry Muratov, was a co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his "efforts to safeguard freedom of expression."
In place of the materials, which resonated deeply through Russian society in 2021, the newspaper posted a statement noting that the reports had been deleted at the request two days earlier by media watchdog, Roskomnadzor. It made no further comment.
The Dozhd television channel said on February 1 that it too was ordered to remove six reports, while the Ekho Moskvy radio station said 34 articles were targeted. Several other media outlets said they received the notices as well. There was no immediate word on any other outlets following Novaya gazeta's move.
Roskomnadzor explained the move by saying it was following last year's court decision labeling all of Navalny’s groups and organizations as extremists.
Dozhd's chief editor, Tikhon Dzyadko, called Roskomnadzor's move "an act of censorship" that does not make any sense as all the materials the media outlets had used were available at many other websites across the country and are openly accessible to the public.
Roskomnadzor’s request came four days after a documentary about Navalny won two top awards at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States. The competition recognizes independent filmmaking.
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5 Things To Know About Russian Opposition Leader Aleksei Navalny
Navalny, an outspoken Kremlin critic, was arrested in January last year upon his return from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin -- accusations that Russian officials reject.
He currently is serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence on embezzlement charges that he says were trumped up because of his political activities.
Last June, the Moscow City Court declared all organizations linked to Navalny as extremist, preventing people associated with Navalny and his network of regional offices across Russia from seeking public office.
The ruling against his organizations also carries possible lengthy prison terms for activists who have worked with them.