18:50, 17 February 2026

The memorial plaque on Anna Politkovskaya's house has been destroyed again.

A memorial plaque installed by activists on the house of Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow has once again been destroyed by unknown persons.

As "Caucasian Knot" reported, on January 18, the memorial plaque, which had hung for almost 20 years on the wall of the house on Lesnaya Street in Moscow where Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya lived and was shot, was smashed for the first time. Activists from the "Civil Initiative" placed a temporary plaque in its place, but on January 19 it was also destroyed. On the evening of February 16, activists installed a homemade memorial plaque on the facade of the house for the 16th time; most of the previous plaques had hung in place for less than a day.

One of the plaques, installed by Yabloko party activists, hung for a week and a half, but was also destroyed on February 6. Activists then painted the original text from the broken plaque ("Anna Politkovskaya lived in this house and was vilely murdered on October 7, 2006") onto the building's facade. Representatives of a far-right organization, designated as terrorist, claimed involvement in the destruction of the first plaque. The man who smashed the plaque was fined 1,000 rubles, but he denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the plaque "fell and broke on its own."

A homemade memorial plaque dedicated to Anna Politkovskaya has again been torn from the facade of a building on Lesnaya Street in Moscow, the Slovo Zashchitei project reported.

This refers to a plaque that activists installed only on the evening of February 16th. "The sixteenth cardboard memorial plaque on Politkovskaya's house in Moscow lasted less than a day," SOTAvision* notes.

For a month, temporary plaques and bouquets of flowers have been torn down and thrown into the nearest trash can by 69-year-old Kadyrov supporter Galina Shustova, a resident of the Lesnaya building. She claims the plaque "has always been a nuisance, from the very day it appeared," according to Victoria Artemyeva's report for Novaya Gazeta today.

The publication notes that attempts are also being made to remove the stenciled inscription at the site of the broken plaque. "The graffiti is becoming more cloudy with each passing day," the author of the article notes.

Anna Politkovskaya, known for her articles on the war and human rights violations in Chechnya, was murdered in Moscow on October 7, 2006. The court found that Lom-Ali Gaitukayev organized the murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Rustam Makhmudov was found to be the actual perpetrator, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "The Murder of Anna Politkovskaya".

Last Interview Anna Politkovskaya gave to a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent an hour and a half before her death. In this interview, the journalist commented on Ramzan Kadyrov's career prospects.

In 2025, on the 19th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's murder, residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg brought flowers to her grave, the Novaya Gazeta office, and the memorial to the victims of repression. Some of those convicted in the case of her murder have already been released, but the person who ordered it has not yet been convicted, Politkovskaya's colleagues recalled.

On the fifth anniversary of Politkovskaya's murder, journalists and human rights activists at a rally in Tbilisi highlighted her contribution to the fight for freedom of speech, demanding that those who ordered her murder be identified.

"Caucasian Knot" publishes materials dedicated to Politkovskaya on the thematic page "Politkovskaya and Estemirova," which also contains materials about her friend To Anna, journalist and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who was killed in 2009 and also worked on the problems of residents of Chechnya. We have updated the apps on Android and Android. href="https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9-%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B5%D0%BB/id1154933161">IOS! We would be grateful for criticism and ideas for development both in Google Play/App Store and on KU pages in social networks. Without installing a VPN, you can read us on Telegram (in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia - with VPN). Using a VPN, you can continue reading "Caucasian Knot" on the website as usual, and on social networks: Facebook**, Instagram**, "VKontakte", "Odnoklassniki" and X. You can watch the "Caucasian Knot" video on YouTube. Send messages to +49 157 72317856 on WhatsApp**, to the same number on Telegram, or write to @Caucasian_Knot.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/420891