Russian Opposition Politician Boris Nemtsov Shot Dead in Moscow :By Alexander Kolyandr And Gregory L. White
http://www.wsj.com/articles/russian-opposition-leader-boris-nemtsov-shot-dead-in-moscow-1425076614?mod=trending_now_2
Killing comes ahead of antigovernment protest march in Moscow on Sunday
MOSCOW—Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge next to the Kremlin late on Friday, in what authorities said appeared to be a contract killing.
“The president said this brutal killing bears all the hallmarks of a contract murder and is of an exclusively provocative character,” Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for President Vladimir Putin , told Russian news agencies.
He said the president asked to monitor the investigation personally, and had offered his deepest condolences to Mr. Nemtsov’s family.
It was the highest-profile killing of political figure in more than a decade, more typical of the violent years just after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 than of today.
The White House condemned the “brutal murder” and called for a “prompt, impartial & transparent investigation,” in tweets posted by the U.S. National Security Council.
Police said the assailants fired at least six shots from a passing white car, four which hit Mr. Nemtsov in the back. A woman he was walking with was unhurt, police said, without identifying her.
Police said they had deployed extra officers and issued a special citywide alert for the killers, who remained at large early Saturday. The area near the Kremlin is one of the highest-security locations in the capital, with dozens of video cameras and other monitoring devices installed.
ENLARGE An antigovernment march that Mr. Nemtsov and others were planning to hold in Moscow on Sunday was canceled and will be replaced by a memorial march, said former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, now an opposition leader.
“He got lots of threats, mostly via social networks, anonymously,” said Ilya Yashin, a longtime ally of Mr. Nemtsov. “I have no doubt this was a political killing. The only threat to his life came from his political activity. He had no foes other than political ones.”
He said Mr. Nemtsov didn’t take the threats seriously. Mr. Nemtsov’s lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, told Russian news agencies that a report was filed with police several months ago, but nothing came of it.
Several prominent critics of Mr. Putin and his government have died violently since he came to power, including human-rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006, and Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London the same year in a case for which British investigators have said they have evidence of Russia’s involvement. Moscow has denied that.
Mr. Yashin said Mr. Nemtsov had been working on a report to be called “Putin. War,” alleging that Russian troops had been fighting alongside pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine—something the Kremlin has denied.
Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the opposition Yabloko party, called the killing an “act of political terrorism.”
“This is a challenge not just to the opposition but to the leadership of the country,” he told the official Tass news agency.
‘If I were really scared, I doubt I’d lead an opposition party; I doubt I’d be doing what I do.’
Mr. Nemtsov was one of the most prominent of a generation of young pro-democracy reformers who came to power after the collapse of communism. A Kremlin insider in the 1990s, he served as deputy prime minister and was once considered a potential successor to then-President Boris Yeltsin, but fell out of favor under the leadership of Mr. Putin.
In recent years, he had been the target of pro-Kremlin activists and was at times arrested for participating in antigovernment protests. He was among the leaders of the anti-Putin demonstrations in 2011-12.
Mr. Nemtsov was one of the few prominent politicians in Russia to criticize the Kremlin’s policy in Ukraine and last year’s annexation of Crimea. Afterward, he was branded by pro-Kremlin activists as a traitor and a Western agent.
He was from the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod, and known for a populist touch. After being appointed deputy prime minister, he ordered bureaucrats to give up their Mercedes sedans in favor of locally produced Volgas.
After Mr. Putin came to power in 1999, Mr. Nemtsov and the other 1990s-era liberals were gradually pushed out of power, losing seats in parliament and being driven into open opposition.
Mr. Nemtsov grew increasingly critical of Mr. Putin’s crackdown on private business, political opponents and media freedoms, and found himself steadily pushed to the margins of the political system.
Once a member of the national parliament, he was most recently elected to the city council in the provincial city of Yaroslavl, but pro-Kremlin legislators there were pushing to have him ousted.
A native of Sochi, he had been especially critical of what he called corruption and waste in the $50 billion project to host the Winter Olympics there last year.
Mr. Nemtsov was one of the few prominent politicians in Russia to criticize the Kremlin’s policy in Ukraine and the annexation last year of Crimea from that country.
In comments that now seem a chilling foreshadow, Mr. Nemtsov early in February told the Sobesednik weekly that his mother often expressed fear that he would be killed for his opposition activities.
“‘When will you stop cursing Putin? He’ll kill you for that.’ She was completely serious,” he said. Asked if he shared that concern, he said, “I’m not scared that much (as my mother)…If I were really scared, I doubt I’d lead an opposition party, I doubt I’d be doing what I do.”
Comments are closed.
