Novaya Gazeta will turn off its servers and leave its office on Moscow's Potapovsky Lane on 9 November, ending more than 30 years of work, the editorial staff said in a statement published on 30 October. The paper will publish one final issue.

The closure removes what The Economist called Russia's "last free newspaper." Novaya Gazeta had repeatedly exposed evidence of Russia's aggression against Ukraine: in 2015, it published a memo that, it said, apparently reached Putin's administration in February 2014 with a plan to annex Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and in 2017 it published a witness account backing the identification of a Russian colonel linked to the downing of MH17. Some 1,500 journalists have left Russia since the full-scale invasion, and over 100 independent media projects now work from exile, according to a CEPA report. Novaya Gazeta kept working in Moscow through the war, until pressure rose sharply this year and, the paper says, left it with no office and no money.

The eviction and the donations cut off together

The eviction became public on 29 October, when The Insider reported a letter to readers from editor-in-chief Sergei Sokolov and journalist Irina Gordienko. The newsroom had worked in the Potapovsky Lane building for 29 years, according to The Insider, or 30, according to the paper. The letter said the paper had very little time to leave and had no new office. The reasons for the eviction and the position of the building's owner have not been made public.

According to the statement, the platform the paper used to collect reader donations was shut down at the same time as the eviction letter arrived. Banks cited internal corporate rules, but the editors called this a coordinated campaign and blamed the FSB, the Justice Ministry, and the Prosecutor's Office.

The museum of Anna Politkovskaya, set up in 2021 in her former office in the same building, will also close, according to The Insider. On 7 October, the 20th anniversary of her murder, the museum received the restored memorial plaque from the Moscow building where she was shot.

Murders, attacks, and a criminal case against an editor

The statement lists six colleagues killed for their work: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, and Natalya Estemirova. It also recalls the attack on Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, who nearly lost his sight, and says no criminal case was opened. Columnist Elena Milashina was abducted and beaten in Chechnya in 2023.

Earlier this year, in April, security officers raided the newsroom for 13 hours, and Oleg Roldugin, whom the paper calls its managing editor, was detained in a criminal case over the alleged illegal use of personal data, The Insider reported. The paper says Roldugin was in effect taken hostage for working as a journalist and that his trial is coming. In mid-October, Sokolov's apartment was searched. In early September, the Justice Ministry added Novaya Gazeta to its "foreign agents" register, listing more than 100 journalists and contributors, according to the statement.

Nearly five years of shrinking room

Novaya Gazeta suspended publication in March 2022 after warnings from the media regulator Roskomnadzor. In September 2022, a Moscow court stripped the paper of its media license, Reuters reported. Then-editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov called the ruling "a political hit job, without the slightest legal basis."

Meanwhile, staff who left Russia launched Novaya Gazeta Europe in Riga, according to RFE/RL.

Euromaidan Press has drawn on Novaya Gazeta's reporting, including its interview with Oleg Sentsov, and marked Politkovskaya's legacy in 2019.

Destinus has completed 1,750 Ruta B1 cruise missiles and reached monthly output of nearly 300, the company said on 29 October, telling Reuters this exceeds Europe’s annual cruise-missile production before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

That gives a date for easing a shortage. A looming shortage of mini jet engines threatened to hold back Ukraine’s deep-strike drones, Reuters reported in April. Czech maker ZofiTech was then producing about 200 a month, nearly all for Ukraine, and expected demand to reach thousands within months. Both Ruta versions use the 1.5-kN engines Destinus is promising. Ukraine plans to build more jet drones and cruise missiles, so engine output next year will have to keep up, Defense Express notes.

Destinus builds its own engines, but hasn’t said how many

Destinus CEO Mikhail Kokorich said the company already produces turbojets in the roughly 1.5-kilonewton class in series, supplying them both for its own missiles and to other manufacturers. The Ruta B1 runs on the company’s own T150 engine. In June, Destinus announced its 1,000th T150 and said the line was designed to sustain production of thousands of missile systems a year. The company has not disclosed its current engine output.

Block 2 enters production, Block 3 is due to fly in 2027

Meanwhile, Destinus said it has begun production of the larger Ruta Block 2, designed to carry a 250-kg payload more than 700 km. Unlike the roughly 300-km Block 1, Block 2 is designed to be stored, transported, and launched from the same container. A third version, Block 3, is planned with a 2,000-km range, with flight tests scheduled for 2027.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the Ruta’s combat use in October 2025. Days later, he said Ukraine expected mass production of Ruta and Flamingo missiles by the end of that year. In June 2026, then-Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said the Netherlands was ready to finance about 700 Rutas for Ukraine, without specifying the version.

Deterrence takes “tens of thousands of missiles”

At the same time, Kokorich said Europe’s problem is shifting from production to integration.

“To have sufficient deterrence, you need to have tens of thousands of missiles,” he said.

European customers, he added, still need to build the military units and logistics to operate missiles in such numbers. Those arsenals would also need storage, transport, maintenance, and targeting infrastructure, he said, and European militaries would need to rethink how they stockpile and deploy precision-strike weapons.

No Chinese parts, and a bet on cheaper, shorter-range missiles

Kokorich said Destinus uses no Chinese components, unlike wartime production in Ukraine, and said access to Chinese suppliers would make manufacturing cheaper, faster, and easier.

Kokorich also argued that cheaper missiles with ranges under 1,000 km would make up most future demand. Separately, Destinus is working with Rheinmetall on cruise missiles and ammunition for multiple-launch rocket systems, including a planned European equivalent of the GMLRS rockets fired by HIMARS.