There's no chance Muratov will shut up as he continues his fight to preserve press freedom in Russia, says Patrick Forbes. Photo: Steven Foote/Channel 4
Last February, when Vladimir Putin announced a «special military operation» in Ukraine, many of his critics took it as a sign to leave the country. But not Dmitry Muratov.
The founder and editor of Novaya Gazeta (the only independent newspaper in Russia), a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the bravest person I know, was determined to stay and tell the truth about the war. In fact, he called me from Moscow shortly after the invasion began and offered to make a documentary film with him about it.
There was one condition: “Do not endanger my life or the lives of my employees,” he said by phone. Thus began an incredible odyssey, during which we chronicled his fight for press freedom in Russia.
As shown very clearly in our documentary The Price of Truth, this is a fight involving acid attacks, death threats and blunt punches. refusing to give in to the Kremlin's brutal attempts to quell dissent as the war in Ukraine puts an increasing strain on Russian civil society.
It's no exaggeration to say that Muratov is risking his life in this fight; a struggle in which the philosophy is completely different from that of his increasingly militant and vindictive president.
As he told me in a rare moment of reflection, “Putin thinks death is good if it means dying for the Motherland. I think that life for the Motherland is the most important thing for Russia. We have a conflict between life and death. And I'm not an observer. I am a participant.”
Dmitry Muratov has lost six of his journalists since he founded his newspaper in 1993, killed after how their reporting offended the Kremlin. Photo: Vladimir Semenov/Channel 4
Death for Dmitry is something too real. He has lost six of his journalists since he founded his newspaper in 1993, killed after their reporting offended the Kremlin. A month ago, he almost lost another one.
Yelena Milashina, one of his celebrity reporters, was abducted and severely beaten on July 4 as she stepped off a plane in Chechnya on her way to report on the trial of a human rights activist. Hours later, Muratov was flying to nearby Beslan, determined to fly her back to relatively safe Moscow, ignoring the Chechen government's repeated threats against him and his crew.
His courage paid off. Fourteen hours later, Milashina was safely in one of the best Moscow hospitals, her body was bruised, and her arms were broken in 14 places, but nothing threatened her life anymore. But it's the consistency and courage that has distinguished Dmitri Muratov — Dima to his friends — ever since I first met him when I was making a film about oligarchs in Russia's chaos in the early 2000s.
I ended up in Muratov's office at 10 am. Moments later, I was wrapped in a bear hug and said sternly, «We must drink,» as the bottle of whiskey was uncorked. I ended the meeting drunk, but not before realizing that he was indeed telling me the truth, as he has always been since.
Ever since he founded Novaya Gazeta with a handful of disillusioned colleagues at the state newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, Novaya Gazeta has published articles about the brutal reality of the Chechen war, the billions stolen by the ruling elite, and the Kremlin’s lies about the Ukrainian war.
None of this makes him a favorite of the Kremlin. Thus, keeping the newspaper alive for Muratov is like walking a tightrope every day, requiring him to step back when he deems it necessary. He had to stop reporting on the war in Chechnya when the life of one of his correspondents was threatened there.
That's because the death of his six journalists is still a source of great pain for Muratov, whether it's his best friend Yuri Shchekochikhin killed by a mysterious poison or reporter Anna Politkovskaya shot to death in her Moscow elevator.
Portraits of all six hang over the editorial desk of Novaya, «so we see them every day.» Under pressure, Muratov defines his main task as to ensure the «safety» of his employees at any cost.
An old photograph of Dmitry Muratov meets with Mikhail Gorbachev. Photo: Channel 4/Maxim Marmur
This is exactly what I found him doing when we started filming in snowy Riga, Latvia, just two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine. Allegedly, Muratov was supposed to be a judge of the jury of the documentary film festival. But privately, he used the visit to negotiate with the Latvian government for the safe passage of as many of his journalists as possible.
Discussing this, in a rare moment of annoyance, he lashed out at my longtime (and long-suffering) producer Elena Durden Smith: “This is a secret negotiation, you know. I can't tell anyone the details.» Turning sharply to me, he said, «Give me your word.» We did, and not a word came out.
Muratov may have been trying to get half of his team out of Moscow, but he was determined to return to Russia and take care of those of his staff who couldn't or didn't want to leave. I was horrified, feeling that he was taking an insane risk when he returned, a risk exacerbated by the fact that President Zelensky had just called him one of the few Russians telling the truth about the war.
My anxiety increased even more when a minibus drove up, when Muratov was about to leave for home. In the car: a group of Russian journalists who fled from Moscow at night. At the border, they were picked up by their boss, Pulitzer Prize winner Roman Anin, a friend and former protégé of Dima. Anin confessed: “I would not go [back to Russia] because I would most likely be arrested. Nobody survives in a Russian prison. He knows all this and, despite this, he returns.
Anin's remark solidified the main theme of our film; every time Muratov returned to Russia over the next year, he risked his life. However, he didn't care. Returning to an increasingly hostile Moscow, he decided to auction his Nobel medal and give most of the proceeds to Ukrainian refugees.
The Russian government did not respond. The answer was delivered more directly. A couple of days later, Muratov was traveling by train to Samara to visit his mother. He missed her birthday.
The door of his compartment swung open: «Are you Muratov?» the masked man asked. “Yes,” Muratov answered. This is for our boys. Within seconds, it was covered in stinky red paint. The attacker ran away, as did the guy outside the compartment who filmed it all.
The attacker doused Muratov with smelly red paint Photo: Dmitry Muratov
The policemen at the end of the platform stopped the paint thrower for a few seconds. And then let him go. The next day, the operator was summoned for questioning. And then let go. All those allegedly involved in the attack denied involvement in it — even the people running the website that hosted footage of the attack.
Muratov called a few days later. It turned out that the paint was impregnated with acetone, a raw material used in plastics, solvents, cosmetics and explosives. His vision is permanently damaged. He knew — all too clearly — that he was being told, “Shut up. And keep quiet about your newspaper.
But there is no chance to «silence» Muratov and never was. Despite his visual impairment, he refused to withdraw from the auction. Last July, in a glittering New York setting, the hammer hit a record bid of $103 million, prompting audible sighs from the audience.
In Riga, after Muratov's secret diplomacy, a slowly growing wave of émigrés from Novaya Gazeta succeeded in founding Novaya Gazeta Evropa; despite the need to maintain a legal and political distance between the newspaper and the Moscow operation, fearing that everyone there would be imprisoned. And every day, the content of «New Europe» is a constant challenge to Putin's rhetoric about Russia, united by «Special Military Operation».
In Moscow, Muratov's newspaper and all of its subsidiaries in Russia were shut down after a wave of Kremlin lawsuits against them. But his editor refused to remain silent — whether he is serving as a defense lawyer in the trial of a veteran Russian human rights campaigner, opposing the government's «Stalinist policy» of branding dissenting journalists as «foreign agents,» or traveling the world to ram home the subject of his Nobel speech about that if «we give up democracy, we agree to war.»
There is no chance my friend will ever agree to war.
You can broadcast or watch The Price of Truth live on Channel 4 on August 21 at 22:00.
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