Novaya Gazeta raided in Moscow. Investigative journalist Oleg Roldugin detained and taken for questioning

The officers entered the newspaper’s premises in Potapovsky Lane around midday without explaining the reason for the search. More than ten staff members were inside the building at the time; contact with them was cut off.

Lawyers were refused entry; defence attorney Kaloy Akhilgov said he was turned away on the grounds that he was “too notorious.” Former editor-in-chief and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Dmitry Muratov, who was outside the building, told journalists the paper was still waiting for any formal explanation.

Shortly afterwards, Russia’s Interior Ministry issued a statement confirming it had opened a criminal case under Article 272.1 of the Criminal Code. The ministry alleged that in 2025 and 2026, journalists had made searches to obtain personal data which were then used to prepare “articles and materials of a negative character.” The statement did not specify whose data had allegedly been accessed or name any suspect. Novaya Gazeta later learned the charge is part 3 of Article 272.1, which covers offences committed for “mercenary motives or by a group acting in prior conspiracy”, and carries a sentence of up to six years in prison.

State news agency TASS, citing security-service sources, subsequently identified the target of the case as Oleg Roldugin, an investigative reporter at Novaya Gazeta. He was detained and taken for questioning; searches were also carried out at his home. According to the newspaper, his lawyer was not allowed to see him. His precise procedural status and the formal charges remain unclear.

In February 2026, Roldugin published an investigation into Ruslan Alisultanov, a former aide to a nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and his luxury penthouse in central Moscow. In December 2025, he reported on a woman who filed a denunciation against a St Petersburg cover band called Stoptime.

TASS also cited sources claiming that investigators were examining Novaya Gazeta’s alleged links to Novaya Gazeta Europe, which Russia has designated an “undesirable organisation,” and the Anti-War Committee, which the authorities have labelled “terrorist.”

Later in the afternoon, an ambulance was called to the newspaper’s offices. A Mediazona reporter at the scene observed paramedics, accompanied by a masked man, wheeling someone out of the building on a stretcher. Novaya Gazeta said the person was not a member of its staff.

At the time of publication, the raid on Novaya Gazeta’s offices had been ongoing for over nine hours.