Dmitry Muratov said the incident happened on Thursday on a train heading from Moscow to Samara. In a post on the Telegram channel of Novaya Gazeta Europe, he said that the perpetrator shouted “Muratov, here is one for our boys” and that his eyes “burn terribly” as a result of the attack. He took a selfie taken in a train toilet. Novaya Gazeta Europe is a project recently started by the staff of Novaya Gazeta, which was Russia’s leading independent newspaper. He announced on March 28 that he had suspended operations during a “special operation” in Ukraine. This is the term that the Russian authorities say the domestic media should use for the war in Ukraine. The closure came after the newspaper’s second official warning from Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor. Novaya Gazeta has removed much of its war coverage from its website after Russia passed a law threatening up to 15 years in prison for information that Russian authorities consider to be false. Muratov, the newspaper’s longtime editor, shared the Nobel Peace Prize 2021 with Maria Resa, a journalist from the Philippines. The Novaya Gazeta was founded by Muratov and his associates in 1993 and has investigated corruption inside and outside Russia, as well as the long-running wars in Chechnya. Six of the newspaper’s journalists and associates have been killed. In 2021 the Novaya Gazeta said that its offices in Moscow had been the target of a chemical attack.
