Moscow (AFP)
In the CCTV footage, a man in a deliveryman's outfit rides a bicycle in front of the newspaper entrance before spilling a toxic substance into the air.
For Novaïa Gazeta, this is only the latest attack.
On that day, March 15, the editorial staff of this reputable Russian opposition newspaper, one of the few to openly contest the Kremlin line and known for its punchy investigations, did not doubt that it had suffered a "chemical attack" intended to intimidate him.
"We are talking about the use of a non-lethal toxic substance of military type to issue a warning to the employees of the newspaper or to take revenge on them", underlines to AFP the editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov.
Several employees became unwell after this episode and it took several days of cleaning to get rid of the smell.
Part of the pavement on the sidewalk even had to be changed on the street.
Yet this is only one of the many attacks the newspaper has suffered, and far from the worst.
Since the early 2000s, six Novaya Gazeta journalists have been killed for their work, their black and white portraits now enthroned side by side in the newspaper's offices in Moscow.
"It's no secret that when Anna Politkovskaya was killed, I wanted to close the newspaper ... This newspaper is dangerous for people's lives," laments Mr. Muratov.
- Anna Politkovskaya -
Anna Politkovskaya, who for many years covered human rights abuses in the Russian Chechen Republic for Novaya Gazeta, was shot dead in her apartment building in 2006 at the age of 48.
"The journalists were categorically against it. They thought it would damage the memory of Anna Politkovskaya if we closed. They convinced me," continued Mouratov, one of the founders of the newspaper in 1993, when a wind blew freedom on the Russian press after the fall of the Soviet Union.
One of the first sponsors of Novaya Gazeta was the last leader of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, who donated part of his Nobel Peace Prize money so that the editorial staff could buy their first computers.
The optimism of those early years is now far behind.
The coming to power of Vladimir Putin in 2000 meant that independent media and civil society were brought to heel, and critical voices were marginalized.
However, Novaïa Gazeta continues to fight, publishing its pages three times a week and continuing to denounce human rights violations and corruption.
In 2018, the newspaper received an unusual package: a funeral wreath with a severed ram's head, as well as a note to Denis Korotkov, who writes in particular on the activities of the opaque Wagner mercenary group.
His investigations shed light on Wagner's operations abroad and his alleged links with businessman Yevgeny Prigojine, known to be close to Vladimir Putin.
Despite these "gifts", Denis Korotkov says he has no intention of stopping his work or leaving the country, like other colleagues and editorial staff.
"It's quite difficult to do journalism on Russia outside of Russia," he notes.
- "Huge readership support" -
More recently, Novaïa Gazeta has aroused the ire of the Chechen authorities by documenting the extrajudicial executions that take place there.
A few days after the article, a Chechen special forces regiment published a video, arms in hand, asking Vladimir Putin for "orders" to defend himself from the "heinous attacks" of the Russian newspaper.
In 2009, Natalia Estemirova, human rights activist and contributor to Novaïa Gazeta was kidnapped from her home, then found shot dead in the head.
For Elena Milachina, the author of the article on executions in Chechnya, the only way to resist such attacks is to continue.
"So that the people who killed my colleagues understand that there will be another journalist who will continue their work," she said.
Dmitry Muratov, he wants to remain optimistic and prides himself on the "enormous support of the readership" of the newspaper, which distributes 90,000 hard copies and posts 500,000 daily readers on its website.
"We are not going anywhere ... We are going to live and work in Russia," he says.
© 2021 AFP