Russians to march in memory of murdered dissident Boris Nemtsov

Opposition supporters will march through Moscow on Sunday in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, whose murder has increased concern about Russia’s future among opponents of President Vladimir Putin. Thousands of people laid flowers and lit candles on Saturday on a bridge near the Kremlin where the opposition politician and former deputy prime minister was shot dead late on Friday. National investigators who answer to Putin say they are pursuing several lines of inquiry, including the possibility that Nemtsov, a Jew, was killed by radical Islamists or that the opposition killed him to blacken the president’s name.

It is a blow to Russia. If political views are punished this way, then this country simply has no future.

Opposition leader Sergei Mitrokhin

Nemtsov, who was 55, was one of the leading lights of an opposition struggling to revive its fortunes, three years after mass rallies against Putin that failed to prevent him returning to the presidency after four years as prime minister. Nemtsov had said in an interview that he feared Putin may want him dead because of his outspoken criticism of Russia’s role in Ukraine. But Putin has described the killing as a “provocation”, and told Nemtsov’s mother that the killers would be found and punished.

The authorities definitely do not benefit from this. Everybody had long forgotten about this man, Nemtsov … It is definitely a ‘provocation’.

Moscow resident Denis, who declined to give his last name

Politics boris nemtsov