Putin in 2012 – Opposition is looking to turn someone into “involuntary martyr”

One thing needs to be kept in mind concerning the recent Nemtsov murder: he was a politician way past his prime. According to a recent Levada Center poll, most Russians didn’t even know he existed.

Moreover, as can be seen in the poll (link below), opposition leaders like Mironov, Yavlinski, Kudrin, Navalny, Ryzhnkov, Dmitrieva all scored LOWER on name recognition but HIGHER on support. Nemtsov was unpopular even among the opposition; this comes from being a Yeltsin-era politician, and hence(perhaps blamelessly) being associated with images of societal collapse and corruption.

Many even argue that Nemtsov was a “decorative” asset for Putin as a stable, familiar, relatively honest but powerless opposition figure.

In short, this is assassination makes no sense: Nemtsov as a martyr is a far, far bigger problem for Putin than he ever was alive – If not within Russia itself, where most people seem to be baffled (this is sort of like if someone assassinated Ross Perot), then on the international diplomatic and mass media stage, where people can be easily convinced Nemtsov was killed because he “was a threat to Putin”.

Three years ago, Putin warned about this exact scenario.
Who benefits? May be internal Russian opposition, Ukrainian government, American government, heck even islamic extremists – but Putin doesn’t benefit, that’s for sure.

Make your own conclusions.

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-njh…

Evidence from an independent polling agency:
http://www.levada.ru/07-02-2014/uznav… (anyone still wanna parrot mainstream media claims that he was a “rising star” of Russian politics and a real threat to Putin?)