A sign pointing to neo-Nazi vandals has disappeared from Politkovskaya's home.
A temporary memorial plaque has been torn down for the ninth time from the Moscow building where journalist Anna Politkovskaya lived and was murdered. The inscription, painted on the wall where a granite memorial plaque once hung, has not yet been destroyed.
As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on February 6, a wooden memorial plaque, which had hung for over a week on the railing of the building where Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya lived and was murdered, was destroyed. On the night of February 7, the plaque's text was restored to the building's façade for the ninth time, this time not with a temporary plaque, but with stenciled paint directly on the wall. Activists also attached a plaque to the house's railing that read, "Here in 2026, neo-Nazis destroyed a memorial plaque to Anna Politkovskaya."
On January 18, a memorial plaque bearing the name of Anna Politkovskaya was smashed in a building on Lesnaya Street in Moscow. Activists from the "Civil Initiative" group installed a temporary plaque in its place, but it was also destroyed on January 19. Representatives of a far-right organization designated as terrorist claimed responsibility for the destruction of the first plaque. The man who smashed the plaque was fined 1,000 rubles, but he denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the plaque "fell and broke on its own." On January 27, Yabloko party representatives restored the memorial plaque for the eighth time. All previous plaques installed in January were torn down within a day of installation, and one resident of the building reported the intentional destruction of the temporary plaques.
A plaque about the destruction of the Anna Politkovskaya memorial plaque, installed by activists on the railing of building 8/12 on Lesnaya Street in Moscow, was torn down on the evening of January 9. The text on the missing banner stated that the plaque, which had hung on the building's façade for many years, had been destroyed by neo-Nazis.
The plaque remained in place "until approximately 5:00 PM Moscow time," after which it disappeared. The graffiti, which replaced the broken granite plaque, still remains, according to the SOTAvision project (listed as a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice).
In addition to the temporary plaque, flowers were also removed. This marks the ninth attempt to destroy the memorial in 2026 alone, Novaya Gazeta notes.
Anna Politkovskaya, known for her articles on the war and human rights violations in Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow on October 7, 2006. The court found that Lom-Ali Gaitukayev orchestrated the murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Rustam Makhmudov has been identified as the perpetrator, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "The Murder of Anna Politkovskaya".
Last Interview Anna Politkovskaya gave to a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent an hour and a half before her death. In this interview, the journalist commented on Ramzan Kadyrov's career prospects.
In 2025, on the 19th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's murder, residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg brought flowers to her grave, the Novaya Gazeta office, and the memorial to the victims of repression. Some of those convicted in the case of her murder have already been released, but the person who ordered it has not yet been convicted, Politkovskaya's colleagues recalled.
On the fifth anniversary of Politkovskaya's murder, journalists and human rights activists at a rally in Tbilisi emphasized her contribution to the fight for freedom of speech, demanding that those who ordered her murder be identified.
"Caucasian Knot" publishes materials dedicated to Politkovskaya on the thematic page "Politkovskaya and Estemirova," which also contains materials about Anna's friend, journalist and human rights activist. href="https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/125059/">Natalia Estemirova, who was killed in 2009 and also worked on the problems of residents of Chechnya.