Russian Journalist and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Selling Medal to Help Ukrainian Refugees

Dmitry Muratov is a Russian journalist who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Now he is selling his medal in order to help the Ukrainian refugees who have lost their homes as a result of his president.

It was the sight of “wounded and sick children” requiring “urgent treatment” peppered in photographs after the war against Ukraine started, which compelled the Novaya Gazeta editor to sell his medal.

Muratov will auction off the medal, and proceeds “will go to The Foundation of Assistance to the Ukrainian Refugees” reports CNN. More than 3.5 million refugees have already fled Ukrainie, with over 1.6 million of those being children. Over 10 million people have been displaced from their homes.

Muratov released a statement expressing his desire for a ceasefire to begin immediately, and for the exchange of prisoners and provision of humanitarian corridors. Muratov shared the 2021 Nobel Prize with Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa. Judges described their work as “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.”

In 1993 Muratov helped found Novaya Gazeta, and has been the top editor since 1995. CNN reports “The Nobel Committee said that the newspaper had been highly critical of the Russian government since its inception, including reporting on corruption and the activities of the country’s military.”

Novaya Gazeta was forced to remove articles about the war in Ukraine from its website due to Russian government censorship.