Dmitri Mouratov, Nobel Peace Prize 2021, will offer his medal at an auction. Proceeds will go to Ukrainian refugees and war wounded.
Russian journalist Dmitry Murat ov announced on Tuesday that his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal will be offered at a sale whose proceeds will go to Ukrainian refugees and those injured in the Kremlin offensive.
The Novaya Gazeta newspaper, of which he is the editor, has “decided to donate the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal to a fund intended to help Ukrainian refugees”, Muratov said in a statement on the website of this media.
The medal, made of an alloy of gold and silver, will be appraised by an auction house, which will then put it up for sale to the highest bidder, he added.
He specifies that Novaya Gazeta, the last stronghold of the free press still in operation in Russia, wishes to help “civilian refugees, injured children and those who are sick and need urgent treatment”.
3.5 million Ukrainians fled the country
The newspaper also pleaded for “immediate” measures in Ukraine: a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, the return of the bodies of those killed, the provision of aid to civilians and the implementation of humanitarian corridors.
Nearly 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine and the fighting sparked by the Russian army offensive on February 24, according to the latest UN count released on Monday.
Novaya Gazeta is particularly known for its investigations into corruption and human rights abuses in Chechnya.
This commitment has cost the lives of six of its collaborators since the 1990s, including the famous journalist Anna Politkovskaïa, assassinated in 2006.