Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov shot dead in Moscow
Date February 28, 2015 - 2:00PM
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov speaks during an opposition protest in central Moscow in December 2011. Photo: Reuters
Moscow: Leading Russian opposition politician Boris Y Nemtsov, a former first deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, was shot dead on a Moscow street near the Kremlin early on Saturday, Russian officials and news agencies reported.
A fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nemtsov had been preparing to join an opposition rally on Sunday against the Kremlin leader's backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, which has brought international sanctions against Russia and sent its economy into a tailspin.
"An unknown person shot and killed Boris Nemtsov on St Basil's slope by four shots from a handgun," the Tass news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying. "A team of operatives and investigators is working at the spot of the crime."
Russian police investigate the the body of Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister and opposition leader at Red Square with St Basil Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia. Photo: Pavel Golovkin
Television and a YouTube video from the scene showed the lifeless body of the 55-year-old politician – once considered a future Kremlin leader – sprawled on a sidewalk along the busy thoroughfare in the heart of the Russian capital.
Putin expressed condolences to the family of the slain politician, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"Putin noted that this was a cruel murder and bears all the signs of a contract killing which appears exclusively provocative," Peskov told ITAR-Tass.
Nemtsov's close associate and opposition leader Ilya Yashin called the deadly attack on his friend "a political murder."
"Boris was the most outspoken critic of Putin and the most charismatic leader of the opposition and his dead body found 100 yards from the Kremlin is a clear message to all the opposition activists and all people who do not support the Kremlin," Yashin said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "This act of political terror is clearly aimed to stun and horrify the opposition to the Putin regime on the eve of the march we will now hold as a mourning march as originally planned on Sunday."
Nemtsov ran afoul of Putin's Kremlin administration years ago and had been active with the opposition coalition PARNAS.
Russia Today television, a pro-Kremlin mouthpiece, said on Twitter that the slaying "could be a provocation," suggesting that the opposition was responsible for the killing to tarnish the Putin administration.
United States President Barack Obama condemned the "brutal murder" and called for a full investigation into the killing.
Mr Obama said he admired Nemtsov's "courageous dedication to the struggle against corruption in Russia."
Other pro-democracy allies and world leaders who knew the gregarious and energetic politician expressed horror over the killing that many were inclined to see as an assassination.
"Shock. Boris has been killed. It's impossible to believe," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said via Twitter. "I'm certain the killers will be punished. Sooner or later."
Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and another outspoken opponent of Mr Putin, linked Nemtsov's killing with other violence attributed to the Kremlin and its enforcers.
"(Journalist Anna) Politkovskaya was gunned down. MH17 was shot out of the sky. Now Boris is dead. As always, Kremlin will blame opposition, or CIA, whatever," Mr Kasparov said via Twitter.
In an interview last year, Nemtsov laid out a bleak forecast of Russia's political future under Mr Putin, who engineered constitutional changes before his 2012 reelection that should allow him to remain at the Kremlin's helm until 2024.
Putin's primary goal as Russian leader, Nemtsov argued, is not to build a modern, European state and vibrant middle class but "to keep power and money by all means," through oppression when necessary or by highlighting invented threats to Russia from abroad.
"He has $500 billion in Central Bank reserves, 100 percent control of television and authoritarian laws that allow the administration to strike anyone from the list of candidates," Nemtsov said of the prospects of Putin being voted out of office in the next election, in 2018.
TNS, Reuters
