In an interview with BBC Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg, Dmitry Muratov, editor of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, stated that there can be no victory in the Russian-Ukrainian war. According to the journalist, what is happening is a “tragedy” in which “two Slavic nations are tearing a million people to pieces.”

Apparently, his view of this war has not changed since it began. In an interview with Russian journalist Katerina Gordeeva on March 7, 2022, he called it a “massacre” in which Russians and Ukrainians are killing one another. He still used the word “war” in that interview, but in the video, every such instance was marked with the caption: “Roskomnadzor insists that Russia’s special operation in Ukraine is not an attack, invasion, or declaration of war.”

Dmitry Muratov is a prime example of modern Russian journalism, which has been characterized by compromises and ever-greater concessions to the regime since the 1990s.

In order to remain in Moscow, Muratov can no longer speak openly about the war. He uses the Kremlin’s term “special military operation” (SMO) and also occasionally hints that he cannot say everything, such as his thoughts on Russian attitudes toward Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Novaya Gazeta published the text of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates’ appeal with asterisks in place of the word “war.”

Screenshot:
“Right now, there are at least 55 armed conflicts around the world. There are no longer any localized wars. *** *** — the Russian-Ukrainian conflict — is taking place on the European continent for the first time in decades. And the consequences of this conflict, now in its third year, have already been felt in a wide variety of countries, causing a worsening of famine in African nations, a migration crisis in European countries, and delivering — along with water, bread, and milk — tons of harmful substances released with every bombing raid to the tables of people on all six continents. By the end of this year, the number of people killed and wounded in the heart of Europe will exceed 1 million. This is the first time this has happened since World War II.

During this ***, global defense budgets have risen to such an extent that they are comparable to the resources needed to slow global climate change. By killing one another, people are simultaneously killing the planet.”

When speaking about the full-scale invasion, Muratov often omits the word “war” and instead will say “the opening word in Leo Tolstoy’s novel ‘*** and Peace.’” He also uses the term “hell.” At the Global Media Forum he stated: “I live and work in Moscow, and I don’t have an ‘export version’ of this speech for you. Since the word ‘war’ is banned in Russia, but the word ‘hell’ is still allowed, I will use the word ‘hell.’”

Muratov even uses the phrase “civil war” in one interview: “We have so many relatives: Russians in Ukraine, and Ukrainians in Russia … This is a war between close and dear people, within families. This is what Mikhail Sholokhov called a civil war.” Note here that Russian propaganda characterized the 2014 Russian invasion of the Donbas as a civil war. They insisted that there were no Russian troops in Ukraine.

This muddling of the terminology, along with vague words such as “hell,” “bloodbath,” and “tragedy,” indicates that this is about more than Muratov’s fear of the Kremlin or his belief that editors must compromise to preserve their media outlets. The inability to call the war a war and to report fully on it, entangles the Russian media professionals in a semiotic trap. Yes, he acknowledges that it was Russia that launched the “special military operation” and that Ukraine is the victim. However, this terminological ambiguity triggers a chain reaction of numerous omissions, loss of contextual connections, and sometimes even distortions.

Since Muratov is highly respected and influential in Western media, it is important to draw attention to some of his statements that ostensibly aim to achieve peace and promote humanistic values, but in reality, they may lead to the normalization of occupation and justify the actions of those participating in aggressive warfare.

“Don’t kill each other — save the planet instead”

Novaya Gazeta published a letter from Nobel laureates, including Muratov, under this exact headline in 2024. The letter asked readers to “support the call for peace” in Ukraine and Gaza. The letter’s main idea is that the parties are intent on “killing one another,” wasting resources that could be redirected toward slowing climate change and saving the planet.

It is seemingly an anti-war appeal but imagine what would happen to Ukraine if its allies diverted the funds allocated to it to other purposes. If left alone to face the aggressor, the country might lose and Russia would win. This would result in what the authors of the letter are striving for: peace … but not the type they are thinking of.

One would think that the editor of Novaya Gazeta, who is also a human rights activist, would understand that such a peace would not actually put an end to death and suffering. On the contrary, a full or partial Russian occupation of Ukraine would result in continued deaths — not on the battlefield, but in the Gulag torture chambers, alongside Russian political prisoners, with absolutely no hope of change.

However, Muratov mostly talks about a ceasefire. It appears that he considers the restoration of territorial integrity, or what we call a “just peace for Ukraine,” impossible.

Here is how he puts it in an interview with Katerina Gordeeva: “No one will revoke the recognition of the DNR and LNR, and no one will take Crimea back from the current authorities. The matter is closed, as has been said time and again. The only option left is to prevent the killing of people. The war will end anyway. The question is, at what cost?”

Muratov lives in a world where “evil has triumphed over good” and “there will never be a Nuremberg,” because Russia is not going anywhere — and besides, it has missiles.

He does not say that Crimea and the other occupied territories are Russian. His position is different. Since it is impossible to reclaim these lands, he believes that we simply need to end the war so that people will not continue to die.

This stance is also common among certain Western politicians. Donald Trump himself has often said something similar. For those Western politicians such a stance reflects a lack of context. For many Russians, though, it is a habitual way to react to their country’s imperial wars. They might have been against these wars from the beginning. Yet they believe that resisting these wars is also wrong, because “people are dying.”

What are the consequences of this stance? Ultimately, it leads to the victim being equated with the aggressor, as seen in the aforementioned letter from the Nobel laureates. In that letter, Ukraine is plainly one of the parties that continues to fight and waste resources. The same is true in Muratov’s appeal to the “negotiators,” in which he calls on the Russian and Ukrainian sides to stop the “indiscriminate shelling of cities.” On the cover of the video appeal, text on either side of Muratov’s photograph reads “Kyiv -20°C” and “Belgorod -20°C.” The appeal itself completely lacks context about what is happening, that Russia began destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as early as 2022. It makes no mention of Ukraine’s warning that it would respond in kind if Russia continued attacking its energy infrastructure. Furthermore, the statement fails to clarify the disproportionate scale of the consequences in Ukraine when compared to Russia. Instead, Muratov accuses both sides of violating the Geneva Conventions and asks that “heat and light be restored.”

“I will say, ‘Thank you, Zelenskyy,’ I will say, ‘Thank you, Putin’”

Speaking about the 2026 Easter truce, which lasted a day and a half, Muratov thanked both Zelenskyy and Putin. Following his logic, it seems as though both men want to wage war equally, but nevertheless they showed magnanimity and agreed to a truce.

One of Muratov’s favorite topics is praising the Ukrainian and Russian ombudsmen. He believes that a movie will one day be made about the Russian ombudsman, Tatyana Moskalkova, and the Ukrainian ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets. “Two very different people, who are in a state of intense conflict and serve different presidents, have exchanged hundreds upon hundreds of prisoners.” An important clarification: while Moskalkova does indeed “serve” her president, the Ukrainian ombudsman is appointed by the Ukrainian parliament. He oversees the observance of rights and freedoms in the country and is not a “servant.”

Muratov acknowledges that Moskalkova is Putin’s person in one interview but adds that “no one denies that when it comes to human rights — especially criminal violations of those rights — Moskalkova becomes a true night-fighting witch.” This raises the question, though: if the Russian Commissioner is so principled, why does torture exist in Russian prisons? Why are there political prisoners whose rights are constantly being violated? Why does she turn a blind eye to the torture and murder of Ukrainian prisoners of war and Ukrainian civilian prisoners?

It is important to understand that the role of the Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova is to cover up flagrant violations of human rights and legitimize Putin’s regime. She should be held accountable for this in an international court, not given awards and praise, still less have a movie made about her “accomplishments.”

We also encounter Muratov’s unequivocal statements regarding the treatment of prisoners of war in Russia and Ukraine. In an interview with Ukrainian journalist Natalia Mosiychuk, Muratov described how Ukrainian soldiers were tried in Russia. During their trials the soldiers spoke about being tortured. He then adds: “I think that now, those returning from Ukraine will also have a lot to say. We must take everything into account. Under no circumstances should any testimony be ignored.”

Recently, some Russian media figures have promoted the idea that the prisoners of war are tortured in both Russia and Ukraine. They have, however, failed to provide evidence of such cases in Ukraine. Muratov also alludes to this idea, and in one instance recounts a story, without citing sources, of a Ukrainian soldier stabbing a captured Russian officer several times in the head. The officer survived and confronted the soldier face to face — they “looked each other in the eyes.” The Russian officer said he did not want to testify, blamed the war, and said he would not press any charges.

It is a compelling narrative in which the Russian nobly forgives the Ukrainian, even though the latter was in the wrong. Another interesting conclusion is that no one is to blame — it is just war. As we will see below, the theme of Russian innocence comes up very often in his interviews.

Who supports Putin

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, most opposition figures, including Muratov, said the same thing about Russians’ attitudes toward the war: people are against it, they do not want war, and we must separate the people from the state that “unleashed the carnage.”

But now, unlike many liberal Russian opinion leaders, Muratov acknowledges that Russians support their president. “They’re lying when they say that Putin has no support or that this is Putin’s war alone … Without significant support from the people, Putin certainly would not have launched the special military operation.”

Apparently, the only reason he made the statement, though, was so he could later portray those who support the war as victims.

How does this work? As it turns out, Putin is “not supported by the entire population,” but rather the older generation, who are victims of propaganda. Muratov argues that these are elderly people who have been abandoned — or, as he puts it, the “party of abandoned pensioners.” They believe Putin is the one who gives them their monthly pension, while their grandchildren spend that money on alcohol. The pensioners support the war out of emotion. In one interview, Muratov said that this generation was experiencing “late-life puberty … they’re irritable, they want fame and recognition, they feel abandoned, and they feel misunderstood.”

According to Muratov, in contrast to the elderly, young people aged 18 to 40 oppose it. They are portrayed as if they were perfect: “This is an amazing, unique generation. They are professionals, people with a high degree of empathy … They don’t want to kill.” They also supposedly respect national borders and have “zero tolerance for aggression.”

Muratov believes that this generation must be preserved for everyone, “not just for Russia; they need help — they should be listed in the Red Data Book, not have their bank cards blocked.” In another interview, he complains that young people who left Russia because they did not want to “kill or be killed” were so discriminated against at the EU borders, that their “shampoo was confiscated,” while the EU countries decided to increase their purchases of gasoline from India, a country that produces it from Russian oil. Thus, this “wonderful” Russian generation, presumably against the war, is juxtaposed against a “pragmatic” Europe that is seemingly financing the war.

According to Muratov, there is a “civil conflict, a civil special military operation” between these two generations — that is how tense the situation is.

Even polls by Kremlin sociologists show a difference in support for the war: older people support it more than young people do. But in Muratov’s account the picture is far too black and white. In one of his broadcasts with Alexei Venediktov, retirees commented that they do not support the war. Meanwhile, the Russian soldiers who voluntarily enlist are representatives of the younger generation. Yet, for some reason, their voices go unheard in this account of an ideologically divided Russian society.

“A huge demand for peace”

Alongside stories about two generations with different attitudes toward the war, Muratov argues that “a huge number of people in my country do not consider the military path of interaction with a neighboring and once-brotherly country … to be important,” meaning that according to these people, military intervention against the neighboring nation is not the way to go. Muratov notes that he is proud of those who have not succumbed to the influence of propaganda. In other words, these are individuals who have a true “noble Russian character,” they stand by their convictions and remain human.

According to official polls, the majority of Russians support the war. Russian liberal opinion leaders, on the other hand, are trying to convince everyone of the opposite. They argue that Russians are afraid to give honest answers to state pollsters. Muratov also presents his “alternative polling data.” However, an analysis of how the data was collected, and the wording of the questions casts doubt on the representativeness of his poll.

In his December 2023 statement, “There is a huge demand for peace,” he describes the “first digital referendum” among “Telegram users.”

The questions were phrased as follows:

• The special military operation must continue. We need victory.
• The special military operation must be stopped. We need peace.

According to Muratov the majority, 66 percent, voted for the second option.

However, is this option truly anti-war? In 1992, the Russians also “established peace” in the so-called “Transnistria.” In 2008, Russian “peacekeepers” claimed that their positions were shelled by Georgia. Shortly thereafter, they occupied parts of the country, which they still occupy to this day. It is highly likely that some of the Russians who now want “peace,” have no intention of returning Ukraine’s territories to it and fully supported the “special military operation” in 2022.

Therefore, the “huge demand for peace” may simultaneously serve as a “justification for the occupation.”

Another interesting aspect of this poll is its sample size. “Something like polling stations were set up at Novaya Gazeta, on the channel of Alexei Venediktov and MP Boris Vishnevsky, at Alexei Pivovarov’s and Dmitry Gudkov’s channels, as well as at those of Maxim Kats, Lev Shlosberg, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Vladimir Pastukhov and Ksenia Sobchak’s channel supported the poll,” says Muratov. None of these channels openly represents pro-war views. The cited percentages represent the view of a relatively liberal audience. And yes, there are somewhat varying attitudes toward Russia’s full-scale invasion among this audience. Ksenia Sobchak, for example, believes it is wrong to wish for one’s country’s defeat. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on the other hand, advocates the opposite point of view. This poll can hardly be representative of all of Russian society.

Currently, we have several non-representative polls regarding Russians’ attitudes toward the war: official, Kremlin-sponsored polls that cannot be trusted and a poll by Muratov and Novaya Gazeta that does not provide reliable data either. Consequently, claiming that there is “huge demand for peace” manipulates the facts.

One more thing that Muratov often talks about in this context, is his “childish” sociological analysis. He explains that he tracks the prices of T-shirts bearing the Z symbol every month and has noticed that they are constantly falling in price. In an interview with the Ukrainian channel Freedom in 2023, he noted this price drop, saying that it was 89 to 90 percent over the year, and that “SMO isn’t selling very well,” and that propaganda is losing steam. Muratov and his colleagues also reckoned how many people in Moscow wear New Balance (NB) sneakers. Depending on how you look at the shoe, the brand’s first letter can look like a “Z”; out of “a thousand feet,” Muratov and his colleagues found only one pair, he reports. The observation is meant to show that Russians will not wear NB shoes for fear of appearing to endorse the war with the letter “Z” on them.

The T-shirts and sneakers might seem like great examples, but they cannot be treated as serious evidence.

Exposure to Propaganda

Muratov compares Russian propaganda to radiation. He says it is something so powerful that it is hard to resist: “Constant radiation of propaganda, malice, and aggression directed at people who have grown accustomed to believing the television icon. The television is the new icon. Propaganda is the new religion. Putin is the new god.”

Propaganda is very difficult to avoid. Muratov illustrates this point by telling the story of “Radio des Mille Collines,” which incited the Rwandan genocide. He says the propaganda effect in Russia is very similar. There, according to Muratov, people are “constantly bombarded by twelve channels with their powerful propaganda machine, around the clock … These people are victims of propaganda; they must be treated as such.”

Following this logic, if propaganda is radiation, then people who believe it and go to war or urge others to do so based solely on this information are not to blame. They are simply gullible and were taken advantage of. This applies to the soldiers who decided to go to Ukraine.

Are the volunteers from the Ural region who went to fight in the Donbas guilty?

In one interview, Muratov recalls 2014, when he saw men in the Ural region gathering to go to Donbas to avenge the infamous boy from Sloviansk, a figure invented by Russian propaganda. “The men, having sobered up, gathered together. They were seen off by bearded priests with cabbage in their beards … They didn’t know the laws of propaganda,” he says. In other words, these people recalled all the horrors the people had endured during World War II. He then concludes that they bear responsibility, but “the guilt for committing a crime against humanity lies with those television personalities, propagandists, and political figures who [created] this myth.”

Like many Russian opposition figures, Muratov understands guilt as something that must be determined by a court. Instead, he speaks of responsibility. He acknowledges that Russians “are all absolutely responsible for what is happening, for not creating an anti-war movement back then, for failing to ensure that we had our own representatives in parliament,” and for not engaging with the older generation, which now supports the war.

However, when it comes to soldiers who voluntarily go to war, it is naive to speak of a lack of guilt. It is like justifying a criminal who broke into a neighbor’s house after watching a movie about “Robin Hood.” The guilt of the Russian soldiers who invaded Ukraine is far greater. The inability to distinguish truth from lies changes nothing.

“Soldiers on the front lines do not hate each other”

This desire to justify the Russian military is evident in other instances as well. From time to time, Ukrainians serve as the backdrop against which this occurs. Muratov has repeatedly spread the myth that Russian and Ukrainian soldiers apparently “don’t hate each other” and treat the enemy with respect:

• “Russian soldiers understand what Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for; they are fighting on their own land. Many Ukrainian soldiers understand that these are people under orders.”
• “I hear about how conscripts are sent into battle nonstop, as Ukrainian social media accounts report, paying tribute to their courage, their desperate courage … some kind of courage — I don’t know what motivates it …”;
• “There is no such fierce hatred. There is hatred toward Russia, but not toward those people who are forced to fight.”

These ideas, however, lie in stark contradiction to his earlier thesis that Russian soldiers were driven to hate by Russian propaganda. So which is it? Are Russian soldiers driven to murder Ukrainians by propaganda? Or are they forced to fight (conveniently forgetting that most chose to be paid to do so) and have no hate towards Ukrainians and treat them with respect? It is clear that either argument aims to absolve Russian soldiers of their crimes.

Muratov does not cite the sources for the above-mentioned myths, and it is difficult to agree with him. In fact, a survey of Russian prisoners of war revealed that 68 percent considered the war justified, and more than 40 percent “did not consider Ukrainians to be fully human.”

85 percent of Ukrainians responded that they viewed Russians very negatively in 2025. That is hardly surprising, given what Ukrainian civilians are living through, and given how Russians fight and treat prisoners. Ukrainian soldiers are unlikely to feel very differently. In Muratov’s case, we are talking about a desire common among opposition figures to pity and whitewash “their boys.” Russian liberal media outlets use expressions such as “our boys,” “daredevils,” “people admire them” to talk about the Russian military, as well as the phrase “they’re just following orders.” Despite the vast amount of evidence of war crimes, Muratov too desires to portray them as tormented heroes who are trying to remain human while obeying orders.

How should this desire be described?

Is it blindness or deliberate manipulation, intended to help these soldiers evade future punishment?

Muratov, in yet another instance, distinguishes between “Kadyrov’s men” and “their soldiers”: “There are two armies. One is the traditional Russian army; the other is Kadyrov’s army. Kadyrov’s army is trained to kill; and they love doing so — it’s their business. It’s their life’s work. They’re well-equipped … They have a motive. Their motive is to fight. But the other army has no motive to go there [to Ukraine]. I’m getting all kinds of information right now. The army doesn’t understand why they have to fight the Ukrainians right now. But there are orders.” This is reminiscent of a statement by another Russian opposition figure, Vladimir Kara-Murza, who said that it is psychologically difficult for Russian soldiers to kill Ukrainians.

Numerous journalistic investigations in the de-occupied territories show that many of the occupiers proven and suspected of shooting civilians, torturing them, and raping them are both Russians and Kadyrovites. Therefore, it is inaccurate to divide the Russian army into those who want to kill and those who do not. This approach tries to portray Russians in a more favorable light.

People who are saving their own cause?

In Russian cultural discourse, there is the phenomenon of Chulpan Khamatova, a popular Russian actress who agreed to campaign for Putin in order to raise money for children with cancer in 2012. It is a recurring pattern within Russian society. A prominent person chooses to compromise with the tyrant thus legitimizing the tyrant and the system. The system that serves to terrorize the individual and everyone around them — a compromise in the name of doing a good deed.

This is a typical FSB tactic, since the Russian security services desperately need people they can control — those who will remain loyal and obey orders. Some want their sentences reduced or to be released from prison. Others just want to protect the work they dedicated their lives to.

At the start of the full-scale invasion, Muratov’s friend Yevgeny Mironov caused quite a stir with his trip to the occupied Donetsk region. According to the United Russia party’s website, the Moscow-based State Theater of Nations’ actor and director spoke about the suffering of children, as well as the “fantastic” people coming to the occupied territories from various parts of Russia. Mironov stated that he would like “the State Theater of Nations to take patronage over the Mariupol Drama Theater.”

This trip is an unambiguous sign of support for the war. Coming from Mironov, it seems particularly cynical, since it involves the very theater that the Russians bombed in 2022. That theater was sheltering Ukrainian women and children, and the word “CHILDREN” was written in large letters in front of it to avoid being targeted. This message was visible in satellite imagery, but was ignored by the Russians, who killed hundreds of civilians by dropping a bomb on the Mariupol Drama Theater.

Muratov does not condemn Mironov’s actions at all: “In my view, he’s behaving absolutely brilliantly; he’s not letting the work of his life — the Theater of Nations be destroyed.” Things get even more interesting from here. Muratov believes that Mironov went there to see everything with his own eyes, just as Novaya Gazeta journalists did. There is therefore no reason to criticize him. Only “good-for-nothings” — whom Muratov tells to “go to hell” — would do such a thing. The show’s host, Nikolai Solodnikov, agreed with this. However, a short while later, Yury Dud, another Russian show host who was more critical, asked Muratov the same question about Mironov.

DM: Accusing Mironov is like saying to a surgeon, “Surgeon, why are you conducting a surgery? The person survived, but that benefits some regime or another …”

YD: Do you think that comparison is appropriate?

DM: Why not?

YD: A surgeon!

DM: Okay. A surgeon. A subway operator.

YD: A surgeon who took the Hippocratic Oath, and an artist who, for propaganda purposes, went into the occupied territory …

DM: No, no — what do you mean, “for propaganda purposes”?

Dud then explained that Mironov traveled to the occupied territories with individuals responsible for the deaths of “tens of thousands” of people and the destruction of cities, among other things. Muratov responds that one should not “increase the number of enemies” and adds that this trip “is not innocent; it will have a very serious impact on Yevgeny Mironov’s future. I hope he can get through this and continue working.”

How can one explain such a response, or an excuse for obvious collaboration with the regime? At first glance, Mironov is Muratov’s friend. However, there is more to it. This model — where you make compromises so that the regime allows you to work — is acceptable even to the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta himself. This explains a great deal, including the so-called “independent” Russian journalism.

During her interview with Muratov, Katerina Gordeeva adds that, on the night of March 5, 2022, Novaya Gazeta removed a series of articles about the Russian armed forces “in order to be able to continue working and reporting on the consequences of military operations.” Nevertheless, a Russian court still revoked the publication’s license. Had Russian journalists stood their ground, this would have happened sooner. But there would have been no need to cave in yet again.

Muratov said in an interview with Dud: “I believe that preserving the newspaper — its work on the most important topics related to corruption, the Laundromat, money laundering, war reporting, and investigations into who shot down Flight MH17 and how — is far more important … The newspaper still has a huge number of important topics it needs to cover. And only this newspaper could do that … Just look at what we’ve done and tell me — is that a price worth paying or not? I believe we’ve done more — much more — than if we had simply given up and let everything go up in smoke.”

So, when reading Russian publications, it is important to understand that the information consumers receive is likely the result of a compromise of some kind. You cannot be sure the information is complete, or that the wording chosen by journalists is accurate or honest.

Can this even be called journalism?

Does the very existence of media outlets, where self-censorship is the norm, further legitimize the totalitarian and propaganda narratives pouring out of pro-Kremlin publications? 

One interesting example here is Muratov’s meetings with Putin and other editors-in-chief. Muratov told Putin about children with spinal muscular atrophy. Putin responded by establishing the Circle of Kindness Foundation: “We can’t collect $2 or $3 million for a single injection via text messages … The state doesn’t have its own money — it’s our money. It’s just a matter of what it spends it on: an injection for a child or a tank.” Muratov’s assumption is that if the government spends money to help sick children, then it will not spend that money on the war.

But with Russia, “not everything is so clear cut,” as they like to say. Russia will spend money on a tank, on a medical shot, on helping children with cancer — for whom Chulpan Khamatova pleaded with Putin — and on launching a missile at Ukraine’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital. Meanwhile, people like Muratov or Khamatova serve as the perfect smokescreen to conceal the military aggression.

Like Muratov, propagandists were also present at these meetings. While Muratov asked Putin to help with sick children, Margarita Simonyan — a Russian media executive and propagandist — called for the start of a “Russian summer” to annex the “Donbas republics.”

During one of Muratov’s speeches, Ukrainian journalists staged a protest. While he spoke about the severe consequences of the “special military operation” for Russia, they played air raid alert sounds on their phones. Novaya Gazeta Europe published the speech under the headline “I ask that the air raid alert sounds be turned up,” prefaced by an explanation from Muratov: “Standing at the podium, I thought it was a technical problem. No, it wasn’t a technical problem. If I had known, I would have interrupted my speech and asked them to turn up the alerts. I have no complaints against the forum organizers, and I understand the Ukrainian journalists’ action.”

It appears like an attempt to sweep what happened under the rug — to act like it was a protest aimed at raising awareness about the war. No, that wasn’t the case. Journalists from the Nakypilo publication explained why they did it:

“It’s simply a reminder that wherever Russians have arrived and the Russian language is spoken, Russian missiles can always fly in and air raid alerts can wail.”

Novaya Gazeta did not publish their explanation. This is not surprising for a publication and an editor who are accustomed to sidestepping highly uncomfortable topics or twisting concepts to give those at fault a chance to evade responsibility.

One of the typical dilemmas a journalism student must resolve in an ethics course is whether it is permissible to use information for one’s own benefit before sharing it with readers. The correct answer is that a journalist’s duty is to inform the public promptly; withholding information violates journalistic standards.

As Muratov shows, Russian journalists are accustomed to feeding their readers a “diet.” Some of the “food” they serve may well be nourishing. But these readers do not have access to the “full menu.”

Such journalists are gambling with the lives of others by protecting their life’s work. First, it was their fellow citizens, who believed that things in the country were not so bad if independent media existed and their editors could communicate with Putin. Now it is the citizens of other countries. As a Nobel Prize laureate and a supposedly “independent Russian journalist,” Muratov will use the numerous Western platforms open to him to call on the world to make peace. After all, peace is when no one is shooting.

The uncomfortable truth is that for Ukraine, this would mean death. The editor Muratov will likely order the last word of the previous sentence to be redacted with asterisks.

Nataliia Steblyna