The Nobel Peace Prize put up for auction by the Russian journalist Dmitry A. Muratov to help Ukrainian refugees, sold Monday night for $103.5 million to an anonymous buyer, obliterating the record for a Nobel medal.
The proceeds from the auction will go to UNICEF to aid Ukrainian children and their families who have been displaced by Russia’s invasion of their country. Muratov said the award was the achievement of the whole Novaya Gazeta team, including the six journalists who have been killed since the paper launched in 1993.
In contemporary Russia, human rights, openness, and freedom of expression have been deteriorating for years, according to activists and opposition figures. A more intensive crackdown began in January when protests in support of Russia’s most famous political prisoner, Aleksei A. Navalny, were brutally suppressed.
Mr. Muratov’s news outlet, Novaya Gazeta, is the only independent print publications still in circulation in Russia. “The situation is extremely difficult,” Mr. Muratov said afterward. “It is toxic.” But amid the toxicity, he’s found a way to deliver goodness.