A Russian journalist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, has sold his medal for £84 million – and donated the money to Ukrainian refugee children.
Dmitry Muratov, editor of the Russian Novaya Gazeta newspaper fiercely critical of the Kremlin, was jointly awarded the prize last year with fellow journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines.
But on Monday – on World Refugee Day – his medal went up for auction and fetched the staggering amount.
Previously, the most ever paid for a Nobel Prize medal was $4.76 million (£3.83m) in 2014, when James Watson, whose co-discovery of the structure of DNA earned him a Nobel Prize in 1962, sold his.
The full purchase price of the medal will benefit UNICEF‘s humanitarian response for Ukraine’s displaced children,
Heritage Auctions, which conducted the auction, said in a statement.
Mr Muratov, who was given the award in October 2021, helped found Novaya Gazeta and was the publication’s editor-in-chief when it shut down in March amid the Kremlin’s clampdown on journalists and public dissent in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It was Mr Muratov’s idea to auction off his prize, having already announced he was donating the accompanying £407,000 cash award to charity.
Source news.sky.com
