Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta has said it was the target of a hacker attack after its web site crashed on Tuesday.

"Today, beginning from about 9-9:30 a.m. [6-6:30 GMT], the web site of Novaya Gazeta stopped responding to user requests. Our technical service has so far failed to find the reason for the web site's crash. There is a strong feeling that the Novaya Gazeta web site came under a DDOS attack," the paper said in its blog.

Novaya Gazeta, which is well-known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of political and social life in Russia, has lost several journalists in the past few years.

Novaya Gazeta reporter Politkovskaya, who gained international recognition for her reporting of atrocities against civilians in the troubled North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, was gunned down in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006.

Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova was shot dead on January 19, 2009 in downtown Moscow, together with lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was acting on behalf of a family whose daughter was murdered by a Russian officer in Chechnya. Markelov died at the scene and Baburova lost her struggle for life shortly afterwards in hospital.

In a sign of support for the paper, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave an interview to Novaya Gazeta in April 2009, the first ever given by him to a Russian newspaper.

MOSCOW, January 26 (RIA Novosti)