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Russian Opposition plans Moscow vigil to mourn murdered Nemtsov

MOSCOW — Opposition leaders called on Russians to attend a vigil tomorrow (March 1) in Moscow to mourn politician Boris Nemtsov following his murder last night (Feb 27) near the Kremlin.

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MOSCOW — Opposition leaders called on Russians to attend a vigil tomorrow (March 1) in Moscow to mourn politician Boris Nemtsov following his murder last night (Feb 27) near the Kremlin.

Moscow officials have agreed to let the rally run through the city centre and end at the location where Mr Nemtsov was shot to death, Mr Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister and opposition leader, told Bloomberg.

Mr Nemtsov, a politician who rose to prominence in the rush of reform after the Soviet collapse and then fell out with President Vladimir Putin, was killed while walking across a bridge near St Basil’s Cathedral with a woman from Ukraine, according to Interior Ministry spokeswoman Elena Alekseeva. His killing comes as the US and its European allies are locked in the most-tense standoff with Russia since the Cold War.

World leaders expressed dismay over the murder and called on Mr Putin to ensure that the killers are brought to justice. Russian state television broadcast extensive coverage of the shooting and showed scenes of citizens visiting the location where he was killed. Mr Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, called the shooting an “extreme provocation”.

“This is not a provocation, this is a reprisal,” Mr Kasyanov said in a phone interview. “It’s intimidation; we won’t be frightened. It’s up to the investigators to determine who ordered the shooting.”

Mr Nemtsov was killed around 11.15pm local time yesterday after a car approached him and fired several shots, four of which hit him in the back, Ms Alekseeva said. The country’s main criminal investigative committee is looking at a number of possible motives, including whether it was meant as a provocation to destabilise Russia, Mr Vladimir Markin, the agency’s spokesman, said in a statement.

DEATH THREATS

Moscow will allow the march tomorrow to be held in the city centre with up to 50,000 people, Mr Alexey Mayorov, head regional security for the Moscow administration, told the Interfax news agency. Ms Gulnara Penkova, a city spokeswoman, could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

Mr Nemtsov had been getting death threats and was working on a report about Mr Putin and Russia’s involvement in the civil war in Ukraine, according to Mr Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader.

In 2011, he published a report that focused on how the leader’s friends and relatives benefited from the regime and on the perks Mr Putin enjoyed himself as the head of an oil-rich state. Mr Putin was prime minister at the time.

Mr Peskov said by phone that “the president noted that there are all the signs that this was a hit and also an extreme provocation”. Mr Peskov told Interfax that Mr Putin had ordered an investigation into “this cruel murder”.

LEAVING FLOWERS

Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich started an economic forum today with a minute of silence in memory of Mr Nemtsov. “A young and bright politician. A very gifted man,” Mr Dvorkovich said, adding that organisers of the killing should be found and punished.

Muscovites today brought flowers to the bridge near which Mr Nemtsov was shot. Mr Anatoly Chubais, head of state-owned venture capital company OAO Rusnano and the mastermind of Russia’s first privatisation programme, was among those shown on television leaving flowers at the location of the murder.

The US and European Union, which imposed economic sanctions on Russia after Mr Putin annexed the Crimea from Ukraine last year, accuse him of fomenting an armed separatist revolt in eastern Ukraine, a charge Mr Putin denies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is “dismayed” by Mr Nemtsov’s murder and calls on Mr Putin to ensure that the murder is fully investigated, Mr Steffen Seibert, her chief spokesman, said in a statement.

CRITICS KILLED

US President Barack Obama said in a statement: “I admired Nemtsov’s courageous dedication to the struggle against corruption in Russia and appreciated his willingness to share his candid views with me when we met in Moscow in 2009.”

Other Putin critics who have been killed in recent years include Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who died in London in 2006 after drinking radioactive tea, and Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who chronicled corruption under Putin and human-rights abuses during Russia’s conflict with separatists in Chechnya, who was gunned down in 2006.

Mr Nemtsov, 55, rose to prominence in the 1990s as a pro-reform politician during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His funeral will be held on Tuesday (March 3) and he’ll most likely be buried at a Moscow cemetery, Mr Konstantin Merzlikin, secretary of the political party co-headed by Nemtsov, told Interfax.

ORANGE REVOLUTION

Mr Nemtsov was governor of Nizhny Novgorod, a region that was associated with early efforts to promote a market-oriented transformation of the Russian economy. He then went to Moscow to become a deputy prime minister under Yeltsin.

After Mr Putin succeeded Yeltsin in late 1999, Nemtsov became a critic and a leader of the opposition movement.

He also served as an adviser to former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who was swept into power by that country’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Mr Putin has frequently warned that those events could serve as a model for Russian anti-government activists.

Mr Nemtsov was “one of not many I can call friend”, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook. “He was a bridge between Ukraine and Russia. It’s ruined by murderers, I think not incidentally.” BLOOMBERG

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