Russian Journalist Auctions Nobel Medal to Help Ukrainian Child Refugees
14 Jul 2022
Russian journalist and APB speaker Dmitry Muratov has made good on his promise to sell his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal to help Ukrainian child refugees. On World Refugee Day in June, he sold the medal at auction for $103.5 million. All proceeds will go to UNICEF's humanitarian response for Ukrainian children displaced by war.
In response to Muratov’s donation of the funds, Norwegian Nobel Institute director Olav Njølstad called it a "generous act of humanitarianism."
Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta—an independent Russian newspaper known for its reporting on governmental corruption and human rights violations, won the prize last year, along with Filipino American Journalist Maria Ressa. The pair were honored for their “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression.”
"Novaya Gazeta and I have decided to donate the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Medal to the Ukrainian Refugee Fund," he wrote on the newspaper’s website earlier this year. "There are already over 10 million refugees.”