Thousands of Russians prepared Saturday, February 27, to honour the memory of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov who was gunned down near the Kremlin a year ago in the highest-profile assassination of Vladimir Putin’s rule.
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There are now five Chechen men charged with slaying Boris Nemtsov.
Opposition leaders suspect that Ramzan Kadyrov, the hardline president of Chechnya and a protegee of Mr Putin, had a hand in Nemtsov’s murder.
“Who dared?” a furious Putin asked his aides after Nemtsov was hit in the back by four fatal shots, the top opposition Novaya Gazeta reported this week.
“It’s a chance for them to look around and say, ‘We are alive and not afraid, ‘” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and a senior lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
People also brought flowers and candles to the bridge near the Kremlin walls where Nemtsov, a jovial 55-year-old with a mop of black curly hair, was killed.
A line of flowers can be seen on the bridge near the Kremlin, where one year ago, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was assassinated.
U.S. Ambassador John Tefft laid a wreath at the bridge, saying he came to express hope that “some of the dreams that Boris Nemtsov had will come true in Russian Federation”.
Many are expected to visit the informal memorial site there after the march, whose turnout may gauge the relative strength of Russia’s opposition, which is beleaguered by official strictures and harassment and almost ignored by state-controlled television.
“His murder was never solved”, recalled AFP a protester Moscow, waving a placard on which was written “Putin Kaput” while behind her, a dozen young people were silently Russian flags in a feeling of reverence. Nemtsov was set to lead a protest against Putin a day after his death.
“It always starts with harmless pranks, and when society gets used to the fact that it is OK to behave like that toward opposition leaders… that means tomorrow you can ratchet up the pressure”, Dmitry Gudkov, the only opposition member in Russia’s parliament, told The Associated Press. In November past year the Foreign Agents Law was expanded with a bill making it illegal for Russian political parties to receive sponsorship from or enter into business deals with NGOs that have “foreign agent” status. Some Russian opposition activists have criticized the Kremlin for its failure to track down the mastermind.
Kadyrov, whose term expires in early April, rejected the accusations.
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“We will find out his murderers, and those who ordered the murder – if not under the current leadership, then under the next one”, he said in an interview with the Financial Times.
