Journalist Dimitri Muratov, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize and editor of one of Russia’s last independent newspapers, auctioned his Nobel medal for a record $103.5 million to help children displaced by the war in Ukraine.
All proceeds from the auction, which coincided with World Refugee Day, will benefit UNICEF’s humanitarian response to displaced children in Ukraine, it said in a statement. Heritage Auctionsthe entity that made the sale in New York.
The newspaper Novaya Gazeta, de Muratov, a critic of President Vladimir Putin and his government, suspended operations in Russia last March after state warnings about his coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The pressure against the Russian media has been constant under Putin, but increased after Moscow sent its troops to Ukraine on February 24.
Russia’s mainstream media and state-controlled organizations closely follow the language used by the Kremlin to describe the conflict with Ukraine. Moscow calls it a “special military operation” to ensure Russian security and “denazify” its neighbor. kyiv and its Western allies say the entire conflict is nothing more than an unprovoked war of aggression.
According to US media, the auction of Muratov’s prize broke the record for any Nobel medal ever auctioned. Various reports claim that the previous highest sale was for just under five million.
“This award is unlike any other auction bid that comes up,” Heritage Auctions said in a statement ahead of the sale.
“Mr. Muratov, with the full support of his staff at Novaya Gazetaallows us to auction his medal not as a collector’s item 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, won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Maria Ressa of the Philippines for what the Nobel Prize committee said were “his efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”
The Russian journalist, who has pledged to donate some $500,000 of the prize money to charities such as UNICEF, dedicated his Nobel Prize to the six journalists from Novaya Gazeta who have been killed since 2000.
That list included journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Russia’s war in Chechnya, killed in 2006 in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building.
