A Moscow court on Monday revoked the publishing licence of the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is edited by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov.

Before the hearing, he spoke ironically of his hope for "an outstanding triumph of justice" and after leaving the court, the paper's deputy editor, Sergey Sokolov, spoke of the Russian government's determination to silence their publications.

"It means that if today's decision stands in the second instance, then Novaya Gazeta can no longer be published as a print publication," said Sokolov. "Tomorrow, it will be the same story with the Novaya Rass-kaz-Gazeta magazine, a journal that we started publishing recently. On September 15, the Supreme Court will consider the registration of the Novaya Gazeta.ru website."

Officially, Novaya Gazeta was accused of failing to provide documents related to a change of ownership in 2006.

The licence revocation was pursued even though the newspaper had voluntarily suspended its publications in March after reporting pressure from the authorities for its critical stance against the invasion of Ukraine.