22:12, 23 February 2026

The memorial plaque on Politkovskaya's house has been restored for the 22nd time.

A homemade memorial plaque installed by activists on the facade of Anna Politkovskaya's Moscow home was destroyed once again. A stenciled inscription about the journalist's murder was also painted over.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on January 18, a memorial plaque, which had hung for almost 20 years on the wall of the building on Lesnaya Street in Moscow where Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya lived and was shot, was smashed for the first time. Civil Initiative activists installed a temporary plaque in its place, but on January 19, it, too, was destroyed. Most of the temporary plaques installed after that lasted less than 24 hours. On the evening of February 22, the 21st homemade plaque was installed on the journalist's house.

Representatives of a far-right organization, designated as terrorist, claimed responsibility for 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." One of the plaques, installed by Yabloko 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. Restoring the memorial for the ninth and eleventh times, activists attached a plaque outside a building on Lesnaya Street with the text: "Here in 2026, neo-Nazis destroyed Anna Politkovskaya's memorial plaque."

Moscow activists restored the memorial plaque to Anna Politkovskaya on the facade of her building for the 22nd time this evening. The previous, 21st plaque "stood almost until the evening," reports SOTAvision*.

This time, opponents of the memorial not only destroyed the temporary plaque but also painted over the stenciled inscription in place of the broken original plaque. The inscription was made in early February and remained up for more than two weeks.

Activists installed a new temporary plaque less than an hour after the previous one was destroyed. "Muscovites install a new temporary plaque in memory of Politkovskaya almost daily, which is almost immediately removed by unknown people," the publication states.

A local resident previously admitted to destroying the temporary wooden plaque, claiming that the Politkovskaya memorial plaque "always bothered" her, ASTRA* reports. According to Novaya Gazeta, "69-year-old Kadyrov fan Galina Shustova" lives in the same building; she regularly tears down plaques and throws away flowers that activists bring to the house.

Any civic expression, whether a plaque in memory of Anna Politkovskaya or a "Last Address" sign for a victim of Stalin's repressions, provokes active aggression among supporters of the government in Russia. Impunity encourages acts of vandalism committed without direct orders from above, human rights activists interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" indicated.

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 had organized the murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Rustam Makhmudov has been identified as the direct perpetrator, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "The Murder of Anna Politkovskaya".

Anna Politkovskaya gave her last interview 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 contains materials and about Anna's friend, journalist and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who was killed in 2009 and also worked on the problems of the residents of Chechnya. We have updated the apps for 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.

* are listed as foreign agents.

** Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.

Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/421061