Novaya Gazeta

Novaya Gazeta's Chechnya Purge Investigation (Russia) On 1 April 2017 Elena Milashina's report in Novaya Gazeta revealed that Chechen police were rounding up men suspected of being gay, holding them in secret detention and torturing them; the paper reported more than a hundred detentions and at least three deaths. Chechen officials denied that gay men existed in the republic, and threats followed against Milashina and the paper's editors. Human Rights Watch later confirmed the purge through interviews with victims, and in 2025 the European Court of Human Rights held Russia responsible for the threats made by Chechen officials and clerics. It is the clearest example of why Novaya Gazeta mattered before it suspended publication in 2022.