How Novaya Gazeta journalists tried to buy a nuclear warhead in 1990s Russia

Novaya Gazeta’s archive has been made freely available and fully searchable, including issues that were previously unavailable, following the paper’s announcement that it was closing. The article revisits one of its most memorable investigations: an attempt by journalists to buy nuclear bomb materials from Moscow middlemen in 1990s Russia.

Co-author Kirill Belyaninov recalls the newspaper’s beginnings after about 60 journalists left Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1992 following an editor-in-chief election. The new paper started with two computers, no distribution network and no salaries; staff handed out its first print run themselves. Belyaninov, Dmitry Muratov and columnist Vladimir Filin later pursued the nuclear arms investigation, which the archive project is bringing back to readers.