A banner about vandals of memorial plaques has been reinstalled on Anna Politkovskaya's house.
For the eleventh time, activists have installed a plaque on Anna Politkovskaya's house in Moscow, commemorating the deliberate destruction of the murdered journalist's memorial plaque.
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 on Lesnaya Street in Moscow where Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya lived and was murdered, was destroyed again. On the night of February 7, the plaque's text was restored to the building's façade for the ninth time, this time painted on the wall rather than on a plaque. Activists also attached a plaque to the railing that reads: "Here in 2026, neo-Nazis destroyed Anna Politkovskaya's memorial plaque." This plaque was torn down on the evening of February 9th. This afternoon, unknown individuals destroyed the tenth temporary plaque on Politkovskaya's building.
On January 27th, representatives of the Yabloko party restored the memorial plaque for the eighth time. All previous plaques installed in January were torn down within a day of installation, on average, and one resident of the building reported the intentional destruction of the temporary plaques.
Activists equipped the plaque installed on the railing at the entrance to the building on Lesnaya Street with reinforced fasteners in addition to cable ties. The previous plaque lasted two days, SOTAvision* notes.
The text on the plaque, restored for the eleventh time, repeats the previous one: "Here in 2026, neo-Nazis destroyed the memorial plaque to Anna Politkovskaya." The original text from the broken plaque, "Anna Politkovskaya lived in this building and was vilely murdered on October 7, 2006," is now present on the facade as a stencil in place of the destroyed memorial.
On January 18, the memorial plaque bearing the name of Anna Politkovskaya was destroyed for the first time in the building on Lesnaya Street. Activists from the Civil Initiative placed a temporary plaque in its place, but on January 19, it too was destroyed. Representatives of a far-right organization, designated as terrorist, claimed involvement in the destruction of the first plaque. The man who smashed a memorial plaque was fined 1,000 rubles, although he denied any wrongdoing, claiming the plaque "fell and broke on its own."
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 had 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 highlighted 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 her friend To Anna, journalist and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who was killed in 2009 and also worked on the problems of residents of Chechnya. We have updated the apps on Android and Android. href="https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BB/id1154933161">IOS! We would be grateful for criticism and ideas for development both in Google Play/App Store and on KU pages in social networks. Without installing a VPN, you can read us on Telegram (in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia - with VPN). Using a VPN, you can continue reading "Caucasian Knot" on the website as usual, and on social networks: Facebook**, Instagram**, "VKontakte", "Odnoklassniki" and X. You can watch the "Caucasian Knot" video on YouTube. Send messages to +49 157 72317856 on WhatsApp**, to the same number on Telegram, or write to @Caucasian_Knot.
* are listed as foreign agents.
** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.