At a glance

Anna Politkovskaya:

She was a prominent journalist at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper who was famous for her critical coverage of the war in Chechnya. She was shot dead in her apartment block in 2006.

Politkovskaya chronicled the killings and torture of civilians by the Russian military.

Mikhail Beketov:

Beketov suffered brain damage and lost a leg after a brutal assault in 2008 following his reporting and campaign against a highway project against Moscow. He died five years later.

Beketov wrote about corruption in Khimki, a town near the $8 billion highway.

Anastasia Baburova:

Freelance journalist Baburova was shot and killed in 2009 on a sidewalk in central Moscow as she attempted to intervene when a human rights lawyer, renowned for his work on abuses in Chechnya was also murdered by a masked gunman.

Oleg Kashin:

Intrepid reporter Kashin was viciously beaten by two unidentified attackers outside his home in November 2010 and narrowly escaped death. He spent days in an induced coma with a fractured skull, and had one finger partially amputated. He survived and eventually recovered.

Khadzhimurad Kamalov:

Kamalov, founder of a newspaper in Russia’s North Caucasus critical of authorities, was gunned down outside his office in Makhachkala, capital of the Dagestan region, in December 2011.