On 7 October 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was brutally murdered on her way to her apartment in Moscow for her professional duties. She was a fearless journalist of the modern era, known as the “Russian lost moral conscience.”
Politkovskaya worked as an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta, uncovering hidden truths and war crimes during the Second Chechen War (1999-2009). In her articles she exposed Russian state corruption, violence in the army, police brutality, and human rights violations under Vladimir Putin’s rule. To this day she remains one of the most fierceful and brave critics of Putin’s regime.
During her lifetime, she published hundreds of articles and several books about the reality of Russian society, and its numerous failures to build a democracy. Her books have received international recognition. At the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 14 August 2005, Politkovskaya discussed her book, Putin’s Russia, and participated in an interview giving the audience an insight into the suppression of free speech and censorship in Russian media at that time. According to her, in 2005 a journalist in Russia was not supposed to write what they experienced and witnessed, but what the presidential administration wanted the masses to believe in. Her journalistic duty, however, was to write what she sees without sugar coating it for the sake of the corrupt regime.
Politkovskaya was a bright figure in the history of journalism, setting an example of what real journalism is. She was fearless in telling the truth, and conveyed information that so many people were afraid to hear. The article ‘So What Am I Guilty Of?‘ found on Politkovskaya’s computer after her death was addressed to readers abroad. She exposed the duality of Putin’s administration, mentioning that journalists who were writing to Putin’s tune about the perks of the Second Chechen war were claiming to be real democrats, while those who were not afraid to tell the truth, as herself was, were not “on side.” “Anybody not ‘on side’ is an enemy,” she wrote.
20 years later Russia is at the state of war again. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Novaya Gazeta’s journalists and many other independent media were forced to leave the country due to wartime censorship and state persecution. Most of Novaya Gazeta staff now publish Novaya Gazeta Europe from Latvia, while a smaller group continues to work digitally from Moscow without official status. Moreover, it became dangerous for Politkovskaya’s family to stay in Russia after the invasion.
Her granddaughter Anna-Victoria Politkovskaya is a political science student at the University of Amsterdam. On 12 February 2026, she gave a compelling interview to El Mundo telling her own story and answering the questions about modern Russia. She is an incredibly talented, resilient, and courageous woman who preserves the heritage of her grandmother, and inspires others to speak up and fight for truth and peace all over the world.
“Anna Politkovskaya demonstration” by Amnesty Finland is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
