Putin critic, Russian opposition leader

Boris Nemtsov killed in Moscow

Object 1

By Michael Birnbaum and William Branigin-February

28 at 8:27 AM

MOSCOW Boris Nemtsov, a towering figure in Russian post-Soviet politics and a

biting critic of President Vladimir Putin, was gunned down steps from the Kremlin
late Friday, authorities said. The drive-by shooting had the potential to open a
violent new chapter in Russian political life.
Nemtsov, a physicist-turned-politician who was seen in the 1990s as a possible heir
to President Boris Yeltsin, was one of the loudest voices condemning Russias sharp
turn toward confrontation with the West in the past year. The killing sent
immediate shock waves through Russia, where he became the highest-profile
opposition leader to be slain in a nation where such figures are sometimes
imprisoned or pushed to emigrate.
There was no immediate information on who killed the 55-year-old politician as he
walked across a central Moscow bridge shortly before midnight on an unusually
warm winters night. Putin said it bore the marks of a contract killing intended to
embarrass the Kremlin, a spokesman said. Opposition leaders said they were sure

that it was an attempt to intimidate them.

The killing was a dramatic and bloody turn for Russias oppressed opposition
movement, which has struggled to find its footing during a wave of nationalistic
fervor unleashed by the annexation of Ukraines semiautonomous Crimean region
last year. Many leaders have been marginalized with prison terms or other forms of
harassment, and public rhetoric has grown extremely aggressive toward those who
deviate from the majority line.
The shooting came a day before a rally at which opposition leaders had been hoping
to breathe fresh life into their cause. Nemtsov was one of the main organizers.

Politically motivated slayings are not unknown in Russia, but not once in the 24
years since the breakup of the Soviet Union has such a high-profile figure been the
victim. Shaken opposition leaders said in the hours after Nemtsovs slaying that
they were newly fearful, but they vowed to carry on. It was not immediately clear
whether they would hold the rally on Sunday.

Just hours before his death, Nemtsov told Ekho Moskvy radio that Putin had
pushed Russia into an economic crisis through his mad, aggressive and deadly
policy of war against Ukraine.
The killing took place as Nemtsov walked in the heart of Moscow across the Bolshoi
Moskvoretsky Bridge, less than 100 yards from the walls of the Kremlin and within
sight of Red Square, one of the most secure areas in all of Russia. Police and secret
services have a heavy presence in the region. There was no word on whether Putin
was in the Kremlin at the time; he typically sleeps at a presidential residence on the
outskirts of Moscow.
Nemtsovs murder is a terrible tragedy for Russia, said former finance minister

Alexei Kudrin, one of the few Putin allies who is also publicly critical of him.
Nemtsov was a political star in the early post-Soviet days, when most Russians still
dreamed of democracy a young, energetic and smart politician who charmed

voters and won high approval ratings as a regional governor and then as Russias
deputy prime minister. For a time, he was seen as a likely heir to Yeltsin, who
served from 1991 to 1999 as the first president of the Russian Federation.
Instead, Putin assumed the presidency in December 1999 and set about relentlessly
marginalizing his opponents. He has held power in one capacity or another since
then.
Nemtsov received a doctorate in physics in 1990 and then served as a lawmaker for
three years. Yeltsin appointed him governor of Nizhny Novgorod province in 1991.

The Russian opposition leader was shot and killed in central Moscow, the Russian Interior
Ministry said early Saturday.

He was a key architect of Russias no-holds-barred moves toward capitalism,

instituting free-market economic policies and simplifying the nightmarish and
corrupt processes of registering new businesses.
Nemtsov was so popular that the Yeltsin camp of reformers briefly considered
running him for president in 1996, but nothing came of the effort. Nemtsov
reluctantly accepted the office of first deputy prime minister after Yeltsin was
reelected in 1997.
As deputy prime minister, Nemtsov spearheaded a program of economic shock
therapy designed to haul Russia out of its post-Soviet doldrums. He sought to
make bidding on government contracts more competitive and transparent. His
efforts earned him the ire of Russias notorious oligarchs, the powerful
businessmen who were accused of looting the nations assets after the fall of the
Communist government.
More recently, Nemtsov had been working on a report that he said would prove that

Russian soldiers were fighting alongside pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine,

where a bloody 11-month-conflict has claimed nearly 5,800 lives. The Kremlin has
hotly denied any direct involvement, which Russian opinion polls suggest would be
deeply unpopular.
He had angered the government two years ago when he charged that billions of
dollars had been stolen from funds designated for the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi, his home town. He blamed Putins friends for the alleged embezzlement,
which he described as a real threat to Russias national security.
Flashing police lights illuminated the night Saturday on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky
Bridge, which runs from the base of St. Basils Cathedral to an island in the Moscow
River where major opposition rallies were held in 2011 and 2012. Nemtsov was shot
four times, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Yelena Alexeeva told journalists at the
scene. Authorities were questioning witnesses, including a Ukrainian woman with
whom Nemtsov was walking across the bridge when he was shot, Alexeeva said.
Images broadcast after his slaying showed his body lying face-up on the sidewalk of
the bridge as emergency personnel appeared to attend to him.
Putin quickly condemned the killing and said he was directing Russias top security
officials to take personal charge of the investigation, a measure of the shock waves
that it sent through the political establishment.
Putin noted that this cruel murder has every sign of being a contract killing, which

has a solely provocative nature, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian
news agencies.
Russian opposition leaders said Saturday that they were fearful that Nemtsovs
slaying was only the first in a new era of political repression.

This murder, politically, it hits the spot, because if the message is to send a scare

throughout the opposition movement, this is one thing to do, said Vladimir Milov,
an opposition leader who alongside Nemtsov had been planning the Sunday rally.
Scared or not scared, we will carry on, he said.

Milov said he did not think it would be the last killing of an opposition leader in
Russia.
This is a new level, but as sad as it may sound, we have to expect a continuation.

Because this is just how Russia operates now, he said.

In 2012, Putin warned publicly that his opponents were prepared to murder one of
their own so they could blame him for the death.
They are looking for a so-called sacrificial victim among some prominent figures,

Putin, a former KGB agent, told a gathering of the All-Russia Popular Front, a
group organized to support him, ahead of Russias 2012 presidential election. They
will knock him off, I beg your pardon, and then blame the authorities for that.
In comments that took on a new significance Saturday, Nemtsov said earlier this
month that he was worried that Putin would have him killed.
A bit worried, Nemtsov told the Sobesednik magazine. Not as much as my

mother, but still.

If I were very fearful, he said, I probably wouldnt head an opposition party. I

probably wouldnt be involved in what I do.

Branigin reported from Washington. Kathy Lally in Washington and Natasha
Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: According to investigators, Boris Nemtsov was killed shortly

before midnight Friday. The timing of his death has been updated in this article.
Read more from the archives:
In Putins Russia, allegations of a KGB-like plot
Opposition battles repression in Russia
Boris Nemtsov: No more Western hugs for Russia's rulers

Michael Birnbaum is The Posts Moscow bureau chief. He

previously served as the Berlin correspondent and an edu
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