Russian Journalist Sells Nobel Prize for $103.5 Mn To Help Ukrainian Children

Dmitry Muratov had earlier donated the accompanying $500,000 cash award to charity.

Dmitry Muratov, editor in chief of the independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on Monday, 21 June, auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize to aid children displaced by the Russian offensive on Ukraine.

(Photo Courtesy: Facebook/ Nobel Prize)

Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of the independent Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on Monday, 20 June, auctioned off his Nobel Peace Prize to aid children displaced by the Russian offensive on Ukraine.

The medal was sold for a record-breaking $103.5 million to an unidentified person at Heritage Auctions sale in New York.

He had already donated the $500,000 cash award that came with the medal, before this. The idea of the donation, he had told The Guardian, “is to give the children refugees a chance for a future.”

Muratov’s gold medal was available to online and in-person bidders, with all earnings going to UNICEF's Humanitarian Response for Ukrainian Children Displaced by War, according to news agency AFP.

The highest ever amount paid for a Nobel before this was when James Watson, who won the award for the co-discovery of the structure of DNA in 1962, sold it for $4.76 million, The Guardian reported.

Muratov's Nobel Prize

Muratov bagged the award in 2021 with journalist Maria Ressa from Philippines, “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.”

He was among the founding members of the newspaper which was one of the remaining critical voices against President Vladimir Putin and his tactics.

Muratov had dedicated the prize to six of the publication’s journalists and collaborators killed in connection with their work.

"This newspaper is dangerous for people's lives," he told AFP last year. "We are not going anywhere," he added.

(With inputs from The Guardian and AFP.)