Dmitry Muratov, a Russian journalist, sells his Nobel Peace Prize medal. Proceeds will go directly to UNICEF, the United Nations Child Welfare Agency, which helps displaced children following the war in Ukraine
Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov sells his Nobel Peace Prize to Ukrainian children. The award, the gold medal, was awarded to him in October 2021, after he helped found the independent Russian newspaper Nubaya Gazeta and was editor-in-chief until it closed last March, following a Kremlin threat to journalists who published content that the Kremlin disliked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It was Muratov’s idea to sell his prize at auction, having already announced that he was donating the $ 500,000 cash prize to charity. The idea of the donation, he said, “is to give refugee children a chance for the future.” In an interview with the AP news agency, he said he was particularly concerned about children orphaned because of the war in Ukraine.
“We want to bring back their future,” he told heritage auctions. “It should be an example for people to sell their precious property at auction to help Ukrainians.” Muratov shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year with journalist Maria Rasa from the Philippines.
The two journalists, who each received their own medals, were honored for maintaining freedom of expression in their countries, even though they were attacked by their governments and received death threats.
Muratov strongly criticized Russia’s Crimean annexation in 2014 and the war in February, which caused nearly 5 million Ukrainians to flee to other countries, creating the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II.
Independent journalists in Russia have been persecuted by the Kremlin, and since Putin’s rise to power more than two decades ago, close to 24 journalists have been killed, including at least four who worked for Muratov’s newspaper. Last April, Muratov said he was attacked in red while on a Russian train. Muratov left Russia for Western Europe last Thursday.