Nobel Winner Muratov: Putin Can't Claim Victory in Ukraine
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- Dmitry Muratov, the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize-winning former editor of Novaya Gazeta, told the BBC Putin cannot claim victory in Ukraine because "two Slavic nations have ripped a million people to shreds," adding that Ukraine "can be destroyed but not conquered."
- Novaya Gazeta had its printing presses nationalized and registration revoked by Kremlin decree, leaving only a VPN-accessible online presence that Russian authorities have blocked domestically.
- Muratov estimated at least 1,500 people are imprisoned in Russia for opposing state policy on Ukraine — three times the number of Soviet-era political prisoners during the KGB era he cited from Sakharov's 1975 Nobel lecture.
- Muratov said nuclear weapon use has been mentioned over 500 times on Russian state TV since the start of 2023 and at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, while pressing Putin on whether Wildberries warehouse drone strikes, petrol shortages, and mobile internet disruption have actually increased Russia's security.
- Four journalists — Antonina Favorskaya, Konstantin Gabov, Sergey Karelin, and Artyom Kriger — were convicted and jailed on extremism charges linked to Navalny's anti-corruption organization, and city councillor Alexei Gorinov was imprisoned for "spreading false information" about the Russian military.
- Pianist Pavel Kushnir, 39, died in pre-trial detention during a hunger strike after posting anti-war videos, while Novaya Gazeta managing editor Oleg Roldugin was placed under house arrest following a 13-hour police search of the newspaper's Moscow offices in April.
- Muratov dismissed talk of elite splits against Putin as fantasy, saying "the country is run by Vladimir Putin" and that fear is "reinforced in every way by his main support base: the Federal Security Service."
Why it matters: A Nobel laureate inside Russia documents a crackdown that has imprisoned at least 1,500 people for opposing the Ukraine war — triple the KGB-era pace — while nuclear rhetoric on state television has crossed 500 mentions in less than a year, and the Kremlin's own security rationale is undermined by Wildberries drone strikes and fuel shortages on Russian soil.
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