Novaya gazeta

11 April 2026

Statement by Novaya Gazeta on the arrest of our journalist Oleg Roldugin and the search of the editorial office

By Sergei Sokolov, editor-in-chief and the editorial staff of Novaya Gazeta

Source: Novaya Gazeta

At the outset, I say you cannot take someone who is merely suspected of doing something that isn’t even connected to a particularly serious crime and turn the screws on them in front of cameras brought in for propaganda purposes. This is an unprofessional, underhanded, outright aggressive, weak, and senselessly cruel act turned state policy.

Police officers claim to love the “Soviet era”— back then, in cases like this, all it took was for a couple of plainclothes police officers to say, “Step this way!”

Now to what actually happened. Over the course of two days, 9 and 10 April, we attempted to work out what exactly Oleg was being accused of.

The task proved beyond us. This, despite a public remand hearing in Tverskoy court. 

Oleg Roldugin was detained not on any charge, but on suspicion of something.

What exactly that was never became clear in court. It remains unclear what the crime was, when it was committed, by whom, or the identity of its victim, a crime unknown even to its investigators.

Essentially, we can assume that Oleg Roldugin is suspected of working as an investigative journalist and of publishing articles of significant public interest, namely, about the corruption of high-ranking officials (including in the law enforcement system).

Oleg said himself in court that he doesn’t know what he’s being accused of, though he suggests that his arrest and the opening of a criminal case are likely related to his professional activities. That is, at Sobesednik*, where he was editor-in-chief, after the editorial board was forced to suspend its activities under pressure from the authorities, and at Novaya gazeta.

His lawyer also spoke about this during the court hearing, explaining that they couldn’t even develop a defence with Oleg, because no one was telling them what had actually happened and what they were supposed to defend against.

Arresting a suspect for a crime that no one can identify is absurd. 

It’s a bit like when a computer has been found in a house, that might have once been used to cause some harm, and they say: let’s arrest the apartment owner on those grounds and then we will sort it all out. We’ll find the victims, work out when it happened, and who the accomplices were…

We can’t say anything else about the substance of the criminal case, not because the editorial staff signed gag orders during the search of Novaya Gazeta‘s premises, but because there is nothing to reveal. The lawyers have nothing to say either. The investigators, too, apparently. 

The reason for the twelve-hour search of the editorial office by a large number of plainclothes police officers is unclear. What can they have been looking for, when no one knows the nature of the crime?

We can say this, however: whatever the charge that may one day be brought against Oleg Roldugin, it will most likely relate to his professional activities as a journalist, in which he brought to public attention information he had learned concerning brazen corruption among high-ranking officials and security officials. The brutal detention of Oleg and the search of the editorial office, we may assume, was aimed, among other things, at forcing Novaya Gazeta to suspend its operations.

We continue to work. We, the editorial board of Novaya Gazeta, will do everything in our power to secure Oleg Roldugin’s release from custody.

*Included in the register of ‘foreign agents’ by the Russian authorities

Translated by Lindsay Munford