Nobel Peace Prize winner Muratov says war between Russia and Ukraine is possible

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa poses for a photo while co-awarded Dmitry Muratov gestures during Save the Children’s annual Peace Prize party at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2021. Terje Bendiksby / NTB / via REUTERS

December 10, 2021

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Gwladys Fouche

OSLO (Reuters) – Powerful people in Russia are actively promoting the idea of ​​war, and conflict with Ukraine is now clearly possible, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov said on Friday.

Accepting his award at Oslo City Hall, Muratov said it is common in Russia that politicians avoid bloodshed as weak, while threatening war is “the duty of true patriots”.

Muratov, editor-in-chief of Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, won the 2021 award alongside Maria Ressa of the Philippines, co-founder of news site Rappler, in recognition of their fight for freedom of expression.

“The strong actively promote the idea of ​​war,” he said. “Moreover, in the minds of some crazy geopolitics, a war between Russia and Ukraine is not something that cannot happen anymore.”

U.S. officials say Russia could soon invade Ukraine after troops bolstered near Ukraine’s border. Moscow has denied that it is planning an invasion.

Muratov also said the press in Russia is “passing through a dark valley”, with more than a hundred journalists, media outlets, human rights defenders and NGOs being considered foreign spies. .

“In Russia, this means ‘enemies of the people,’” Muratov said, dedicating his award to all investigative journalists, and to colleagues at Novaya Gazeta killed for their work. .

Muratov’s co-awarder, Ressa, reiterated his call for reform of social media platforms.

“Our greatest need today is to transform the hatred and violence, the toxic mud that is seeping through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies,” she said. money by spreading that hate and causing the worst of us.”

“For the United States, reform or revoke section 230, the law that treats social media platforms like utilities.”

Ressa and Muratov are the first journalists to receive a Nobel Prize since Germany’s Carl von Ossietzky won it in 1935 for revealing a secret Nazi rearmament program.

Ressa noted in his speech that Von Ossietzky was never able to receive his prize as he was held in a concentration camp and died in custody.

“By giving this to journalists today, the Nobel committee is signaling a similar historic moment, another point of existence for democracy,” she said.

For an image listing all the Nobel laureates, click https://graphics.reuters.com/NOBEL-PRIZE/010050ZC27H/index.html

(Additional reporting by Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; editing by John Stonestreet)