Nemtsov was shot to death late at night as he and a companion walked across a bridge overlooking the Kremlin. They say the person who ordered the hit has been neither identified nor arrested.
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Many opposition supporters say even if Putin had no direct hand in Nemtsov’s killing, he bears responsibility for encouraging a truculent authoritarianism.
It was an increasingly rare public reminder that there remain vocal opponents to Putin in Russian Federation despite his popularity in opinion polls and vaunted status on national television.
Schulmann said that Saturday’s rally would serve as a kind of head count for the liberal and pro-democratic opposition, which will seek new support from those angry about the economy in parliamentary elections this September. Kadyrov denies any involvement, though he has praised one of the suspects as “a true patriot of Russia”.
Moscow police said 7,000 people took part in the memorial march on Saturday that, following a route approved by city authorities, wound through the centre without passing near the bridge where Nemtsov was killed.
“It’s a very big loss, because there are very few well-known opposition activists”, Zhanna Nemtsova said.
A Reuters reporter saw one man being dragged away into a side street in handcuffs. Others held banners reading “Killed for the truth” and “Who is next?” Some demonstrators carried portraits of Nemtsov, chanting “Russia will be free” and “Russia without Putin”.
Russia, like other countries around the world, has been exposed to the risk of becoming a potential recruiting ground for radical Islamist networks.
Nemtsov, 55, was investigating reports about Russian soldiers in Ukraine, aides and colleagues said, and planned to speak to soldiers from Russia’s 98th airborne division based in Ivanovo, some of whose members Kyiv said it had captured southeast of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Rose to prominence under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and grew into a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin. “Authorities did not allow us to march to the bridge, because they are afraid of a symbolism of Boris’s murder place”. But many went there after the march to lay flowers at an improvised memorial that the authorities have repeatedly tried to destroy.
The scene of his crumpled body lying with brightly lit Kremlin towers in background was a grisly and vivid symbol of the dangers facing Russian opposition figures.
The Kremlin has downplayed Nemtsov’s significance, calling his murder a “provocation”.
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Though Mr. Kadyrov has never been questioned about Mr. Nemtsov’s murder, three of the five suspects were fighters in a unit loyal to him. One woman in the crowd said it was an impressive number of people, that “Boris Nemtsov is uniting people in death”, and that “people should not stay silent”.
