Dmitry Muratov, the co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize and the editor of one in every of Russia’s final main unbiased newspapers, auctioned off his Nobel medal for a file $103.5 million to assist youngsters displaced by the warfare in Ukraine.
All proceeds from the public sale, which coincided with the World Refugee Day on Monday, will profit UNICEF’s humanitarian response for Ukraine’s displaced youngsters, Heritage Auctions, which carried out the sale in New York, stated in a press release.
Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper, fiercely essential of President Vladimir Putin and his authorities, suspended operations in Russia in March after warnings from the state over its protection of the warfare in Ukraine.
Pressure in opposition to liberal Russian media retailers has been steady beneath Putin, Russia’s paramount chief, since 1999, nevertheless it has mounted after Moscow despatched troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Muratov was attacked with crimson paint in April.
Russia’s mainstream media and state-controlled organisations observe carefully the language utilized by the Kremlin to explain the battle with Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special operation” to make sure Russian safety and denazify its neighbour. Kyiv and its Western allies say it’s an unprovoked warfare of aggression.
According to U.S. media reviews, the public sale of Muratov’s prize shattered the file for any Nobel medal that has been auctioned off, with reviews saying that the earlier highest sale fetched slightly below $5 million.
“This award is unlike any other auction offering to present,” Heritage Auctions stated in a press release earlier than the sale.
“Mr. Muratov, with the full support of his staff at Novaya Gazeta, is allowing us to auction his medal not as a collectible but as an event that he hopes will positively impact the lives of millions of Ukrainian refugees.”
Muratov, who co-founded Novaya Gazeta in 1991, received the 2021 the Nobel Peace Prize with Maria Ressa of the Philippines for what the Nobel Prize committee stated have been “their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.
Muratov, who pledged to donate about $500,000 of that prize cash to charities, devoted his Nobel to the six Novaya Gazeta journalists who’ve been murdered since 2000.
That checklist included the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Russia’s warfare in Chechnya, who was killed in 2006 within the elevator of her Moscow house constructing.
