MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Editor-in-Chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper Dmitry Muratov, who has won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, told TASS he couldn’t take all the credit for the win, stressing that this was the merit of the newspaper and colleagues who died for freedom of speech.

"I was working, I was busy. I received a phone call from the Nobel Committee, but I didn’t pick up the phone. I did not even have the time to read the whole text. I will tell you this: I can’t take all the credit. This is thanks to Novaya Gazeta and those who died while defending people's right to freedom of speech. Since they are no longer with us, they apparently decided that I should say this to everyone. This is Igor Domnikov, Yura Schekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Nastya Baburova, Natasha Estemirova, and Stas Markelov. <...> This is the truth. I think so. This is the truth. This is for them," Muratov told TASS.

Earlier on Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Filipino journalist Maria Ressa.

The committee decided to award the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize to Muratov and Ressa "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."

Dmitry Muratov is one of Novaya Gazeta’s founders, he was the newspaper’s editor-in-chief in 1995-2017 and resumed his position in 2019.

Muratov is the first Nobel Peace Prize laureate in Russia’s recent history. Earlier, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Soviet physicist and leading human rights activist Andrei Sakharov in 1975 and First Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990.

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