(Reuters) – Thousands of stunned Russians laid flowers and lit candles on Saturday on the bridge where opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin, a murder that showed the risks of speaking out against President Vladimir Putin.
Nemtsov, 55, was shot four times in the back by killers in a white car late on Friday as he walked across the bridge over the Moskva River in central Moscow with a Ukrainian woman, who was unhurt, police said.
Police sealed off the blood-stained bridge close to the red walls of the Kremlin and Red Square for two hours overnight, then hosed it down as people came to pay tribute to one of Putin’s biggest opponents over Russia’s role in Ukraine.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which answers to Putin, said it was following several lines of inquiry, including that the opposition may have committed the crime to rally support for a march against Kremlin policies on the economy and Ukraine.
Flowers were piled at least a meter (three feet) high, about two meters deep and two meters wide. A piece of white paper saying “We are all Nemtsov” stood among the flowers.
“People are afraid to support our movement. Opposition activists receive threats every day and Boris was no exception. But they won’t stop us,” said opposition activist Mark Galperin.
No government or Kremlin official was seen paying tribute but many opposition figures did so, with some warning that the pro-war mood and anti-Western hysteria whipped up by Putin over Ukraine was leading Russia into a dark future.
“In our country there is demand for anger. In our country there is demand for hatred. In our country there is demand for aggression,” said Anatoly Chubais, late President Boris Yeltsin’s chief of staff and a liberal economic reformer.
Referring to a pro-Putin march last week, he said: “If just a few days ago here in this city people were marching with a poster “Kill off the fifth column” and then today Boris Nemtsov is killed – let’s just pause and think what will happen tomorrow. We all must stop.”
A former deputy prime minister who had feared Putin wanted him dead, Nemtsov was the most prominent opposition figure killed in Putin’s 15-year rule. At one time he had been widely seen as the man most likely to succeed Yeltsin as president.
His gangland-style murder was reminiscent of the chaotic 1990s after the Communist Soviet Union collapsed and raised further questions about the opposition’s ability to mount any challenge to Putin in such a dangerous environment.
The Kremlin deflected accusations that it was to blame and Putin put the investigation under presidential control, denouncing what he called a “provocation” before an opposition protest that had been planned on Sunday.
In a telegram to Nemtsov’s mother, he promised the killers would be found and punished.
But the killing focused attention on the tough treatment of opponents in Putin’s third term, during which several leading critics have been jailed or have fled Russia following mass rallies against the former KGB spy three years ago.
“I would say this is not only a blow to the opposition, it is a blow to all Russian society. It is a blow to Russia. If political views are punished this way, then this country simply has no future,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, an opposition leader.
FEW POLITICAL MURDERS SOLVED
Leading international condemnation of the murder, U.S. President Barack Obama called for a prompt, impartial and transparent investigation to ensure those responsible were brought to justice for the “vicious killing”.
Political murders often go unsolved in Russia. Police said they were investigating whether the murder was aimed at destabilizing the political situation in Russia or was committed by radical Islamists against Nemtsov, a Jew.
A car suspected of being used by the killers, and identified as coming from the mainly Muslim Ingushetia region, was found abandoned in central Moscow. Some Russian news outlets said surveillance footage showed two men leaving it.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev cautioned against jumping to conclusions but some opposition figures blamed Putin directly. Others said Russian society was in decline, describing an environment where Putin demands total loyalty and supporters go to great lengths to do what they think may please him.
“In Putin’s atmosphere of hatred and violence, abroad and in Russia, bloodshed is the prerequisite to show loyalty, that you are on the team,” another opposition leader, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, said on Twitter.
“If Putin gave (the) order to murder Boris Nemtsov is not the point. It is Putin’s dictatorship. His 24/7 propaganda about enemies of the state.”
ANONYMOUS THREATS
Nemtsov, who had been out walking on Great Moskvoretsky Bridge after a meal in a restaurant by Red Square, had said in a recent interview the president might want him dead because of his opposition to the conflict in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Nemtsov had told him a couple of weeks ago that he planned to disclose evidence of Russia’s involvement in Ukraine’s separatist conflict.
“Someone was very afraid of this … They killed him,” Poroshenko said in televised comments shown in Ukraine.
Kiev, the West and some Russians accuse Moscow of sending troops to support separatist rebels who have risen up in east Ukraine, an accusation Russia has denied.
The organizers of Sunday’s planned protest against the war decided to cancel it. Instead, Moscow city authorities agreed they could hold a march for up to 50,000 people to remember Nemtsov.
Nemtsov’s criticism of Putin won him support among Moscow’s intellectuals and the nascent middle class but he had little support outside the big cities.
Nemtsov was a fighter against corruption. In other reports, he condemned overspending on the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics by the Russian authorities and listed the many state buildings, helicopters and planes that Putin has at his disposal.
He was also one of the leaders of the rallies in the winter of 2011-12 that became the biggest protests against Putin since he first rose to power in 2000.
Nemtsov briefly served as a deputy prime minister under Yeltsin in the late 1990s, after winning a reputation as a leading liberal economic reformer as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region.
The opposition has failed to dent Putin’s popularity even though many people feel the pain of Western economic sanctions over Ukraine, low oil prices and poor economic management.
Opposition blogger Alexei Navalny is serving a 15-day jail term. Kasparov is based in the United States and former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, freed in late 2013 after a decade in jail, lives in Switzerland.
Some opponents say they fear for their lives. Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist, was shot dead outside her Moscow apartment on Putin’s birthday in 2006. The person who ordered the killing has never been identified.
(Additional reporting by Katya Golubkova, Vladimir Soldatkin, Denis Dyomkin, Polina Devitt and Thomas Grove, and by Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Timothy Heritage; Editing by Elizabeth Piper and)
“Boris Nemtsov Joins List of Dead Vladimir Putin Critics”
http://abcnews.go.com/International/boris-nemtsov-joins-list-dead-vladimir-putin-critics/story?id=29292143
” ‘Contract Hit’…’He’ll Kill You’ ”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31677506
“He was afraid of being killed”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/world/europe/killing-of-boris-nemtsov-putin-critic-breeds-fear-in-russia.html?_r=0
Hey SS-The Independent…… Question……. Who you calling a “troll/shit”?
You owe the lady an apology, if you’re calling her a troll. She’s been with this site since it’s inception.
If there’s a troll afoot, it be you.
idiot
so SS-The Independent, were waiting for your response. What say you?
As the sharks gather round…
You still have not answered my 5:04 pm question SS-The Independent!
Articles are posted here for the purpose of discussion. Anything that comes from MSM sources is AUTOMATICALLY suspect. DUH!
These articles are also posted so that we can destroy the ‘official’ story. That’s what we do, and we’re damn good at it.
Best to ascertain the nature of a site and it’s posters, before making stupid accusations.
Cat got his tongue apparently.
He’s lucky Diggerdan isn’t here to grab hold of him.
Yes Paul, digger would have “ripped him a new one” for his attempt to besmirch one of our own family. I can see digger saying, “You F’N blankety blank, you can take your head and insert it back where it came from.” Then there would be a bunch more swear words and demeaning statements ending with a good f^*k you.
Just stepped on Millard. Yeah, didn’t know Digger personally, God rest him, but I’ll defend him and Angel as my own. I’ll chew yer eyeballs out as long as my brain has connectivity to any part of me. F u, u f’n F. See you on the frontline. Godspeed.
Yes Millard, I remember. He’s still in my heart. Miss him a lot.
I think about digger every day brother. I miss him a lot.
Yeah me too Millard. I can still hear him laughing. His laugh was always a pleasure for me to hear. He had the heart of a warrior. He was unique.
Me, too.
To say diggerdan was “unique” is to say the least. A tortured soul most of his life, beat down and incarcerated by “Johnny Law”, he reminds me of Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side of life.” A naturalist and herbalist, he taught me more than my share. I inherited his library of psychedelic references including his rare collection of “The Entheogen Review”, The Journal of Unauthorized Research on Visionary Plants and Drugs. Some of the stuff goes “way out there”. I’m reading an article out of Volume XII, Number 2, Summer Solstice 2003 entitled “Disembodied Eyes and Divine Vision” by Jon Hanna. Most of the stuff is quite intellectual and very interesting reading. (I wish I knew how to insert Monty Python right after this comment but, oh well, we can’t have everything.)
Hey SS,
Drop dead you f,ck…. what ever rock you crawled out from, get the f,ck back under it. Putin is a murdering sausage smoker who digs idiot commie fags like you.
Quit watching FAUX News…. you people are sucking up the propaganda like a calf sucks milk…. Wake up.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Who Killed Boris Nemtsov?
Summary: In all likelihood, the February 27 assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov is part of the CIA’s campaign of discrediting Russian President Vladimir Putin and destablizing the Russian Federation.
http://www.shiftfrequency.com/moti-nissani-who-killed-boris-nemtsov/#more-67908
A few hours ago, on the evening of February 27, 2015, Boris Nemtsov (1959-2015), former deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation and a leader of the Russian opposition, was murdered, some 200 meters away from the Kremlin.
According to a CIA-sponsored publication that lost no time in updating Nemtsov’s biography, he had been “an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin.”
Was President Vladimir Putin behind this murder—or was it someone else?
To begin with, everyone agrees that Putin is a brilliant strategist and politician. Against all odds, he has thus far patiently brought Russia from the brink of utter poverty, disintegration, and disaster. One has just to watch him improvising a press conference, calmly, competently, and tirelessly, to realize that one is dealing here with a real, almost forgotten, specimen of a lost art: superb statesmanship.
“Quit watching Faux News”
Once again, the paid agents of the government are trying to find a way into the Trenches, as we here present a unique problem. We refuse to become a part of any of the collective. We’re not der dumb conservatives, coolie communists, Hispanic caucus, the black caucus, or any other collective caucus. Rather we are American nationals of the American race bringing the reality of all forward and showing it for what it is.
It’s not that Watcher does not understand this any more than the paid shill who tried to attack Angel yesterday.
Tell you what, Watcher, we in the Trenches are watching you, and if you love Putin so much, maybe you should take your communist ass over to Russia and become a part of that collective.
Here at From the Trenches, we talk about what we want to and no two bit troll like you can pigeon-hole us as we are individuals and the intellect of our people shines. You are going to lose in the end and all who worked against us are going to be brought to account.
Anyways, fellow Trenchers, I let this comment through to portray the subtle trolls that are being sent against us at present, may they rot in hell.
I was impressed with the response from all the fellow trenchers who came to Angel-NYC’s defense yesterday. We protect our own.
” We protect our own”
Amen Millard. In more ways than one. These vermin need to get out of this country before we come for them. 😡
Thank you each and all. We are Family.
I had no idea that this story would cause such a stir. LOL
Thanks for posting this Angel-NYC.
Have you checked your email, Millard? 🙂
Carry on Henry!!! 🙂 😎
🙂 🙂 🙂
For Millard (@ 9:30 am)
http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/monty-python-always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life/77390
Hey Angel… 🙂
Looks like we got a twofer in the troll sector on this one.
idiots
Indeed. 😉 🙂
BTW
Check your email. 🙂
Already did…
NICE!!! 😀
(Sorry, I went too easy on that troll)
Nice waterfall… 😉