Russian Newspaper Joins Forces With WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his organization has damning materials about Russia, and now Novaya Gazeta, perhaps the dominant independent Russian newspaper, has unfettered access to them.

Novaya Gazeta, which is controlled by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and billionaire Alexander Lebedev, said on its website that it agreed to join forces with WikiLeaks to expose corruption in Russia, Bloomberg reports.

Novaya Gazeta has agreed to become the primary vehicle for publishing WikiLeaks materials on Russia, much like The New York Times did for WikiLeaks' stolen U.S. diplomatic cables.

"Assange said that Russians will soon find out a lot about their country and he wasn't bluffing," Novaya Gazeta said. "Our collaboration will expose corruption at the top tiers of political power. No one is protected from the truth."

The weekly newspaper is known in an industry dominated by state-run companies for its critical reports of the Kremlin and investigative coverage of Russian affairs, Bloomberg reports.

Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote about graft under then-President Vladimir Putin and chronicled abuses by military forces in Chechnya, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006, on Putin's birthday.

WikiLeaks' database reportedly includes documents about Politkovskaya's murder as well as information about Russian politicians' ties to organized crime, Nadezhda Prusenkova, a Novaya Gazeta spokeswoman, said by phone from Moscow, Bloomberg reports. The newspaper will start releasing materials next month.

shahzaib chaudhary is based in San Francisco, California, United States of America, and is Stringer for Allvoices

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