Russian opposition to march to scene of Boris Nemtsov's killing

Opposition supporters will march through Moscow on Sunday to the spot where Boris Nemtsov was gunned down, as police continue the hunt for the politician’s killer.

Thousands of people laid flowers and lit candles on Saturday on the bridge in the shadow of the Kremlin’s towers where Nemtsov was shot late on Friday night.

Nemtsov himself had planned to march on Sunday in Marino, on the outskirts of the Russian capital, to protest against Vladimir Putin’s economic policies and the separatist war in east Ukraine, which the Kremlin denies it has any role in.

But organisers cancelled that demonstration and said they would instead meet in central Moscow for a different kind of march. One of them, Leonid Volkov, said: “The march in the Marino district which we had planned – a positive march with flags and balloons – does not fit this tragic moment and the magnitude of Nemtsov’s persona, as well as the magnitude of the red line we have now crossed and which we have not yet recognised.”

The opposition said Moscow city authorities had approved the march from 3pm (1200 GMT), allowing for up to 50,000 people, though the organisers say more could show up to march alongside the Moskva river.

Meanwhile, Moscow police will continue an investigation the president has promised to take under personal control. Nemtsov’s friends and political partners say they fear the real killers will never be brought to justice.

Many of those close to Nemtsov believe the 55-year-old former deputy prime minister was killed either for his opposition to the Kremlin, or by shady nationalist forces reacting to a long propaganda campaign on state-controlled television calling the political opposition traitors.

However, Russia’s investigative committee said it was working on several different theories, including Nemtsov being used as a “sacrificial victim” to destabilise Russia, Islamist extremism, the Ukraine conflict or a personal issue.
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Absent from a list of possible leads released by spokesman Vladimir Markin was what most people saw as the most likely reason for his violent death: that Nemtsov was one of the most vocal critics of Putin.

Nemtsov, a star politician in the 1990s who was once seen as a potential successor to Boris Yeltsin, had been marginalised in recent years, but was due to lead the major march on Sunday. Just hours before his death, he had appeared on a radio programme calling on Muscovites to come out and protest. He was working on a report detailing evidence of Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, which the Kremlin denies.

Nemtsov was shot four times from a passing car in one of the most carefully watched parts of Moscow, metres from one of the Kremlin towers and in the shadow of St Basil’s cathedral. It was also likely he was under surveillance before Sunday’s planned march, all of which suggested the killers were professionals and not scared of detection.

At the spot where Nemtsov was killed, a steady stream of mourners came.

Sergei Mitrokhin, of the liberal Yabloko party, said the killing was a blow to all of Russia: “If political views are punished in this way, this country has no future,” he said, after laying flowers at the scene of the murder.

Alexei Navalny, another opposition leader, was jailed for 15 days in the runup to the march for distributing leaflets. From jail, he expressed his shock at the killing.

Putin has vowed to punish the killers, saying in a message to Nemtsov’s 87-year-old mother he would do all he could so “the organisers and perpetrators of a vile and cynical murder get the punishment they deserve”.

The president said of Nemtsov: “He had the task of working in important jobs during the difficult transition period our country was going through. He always stated his positions and argued his points directly and honestly.”

There did appear to be an element of genuine shock at the killing among the authorities, with television programmes devoted to the killing featuring some grudging praise for Nemtsov and for his achievements in government.

The prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, said: “Boris Nemtsov became one of the most talented politicians in the period of democratic transformations in our country. Up to his very last day, he remained a bright personality, a principled man.”

But the eulogies from top officials contrasted sharply with previous comments by Putin that the political opposition is a “fifth column” trying to destroy Russia, and repeated television smears calling the opposition traitors.

Muddying the waters, pro-Kremlin figures rushed to come up with apparently outlandish theories that the killing was meant to frame Putin.

“There is no doubt that Boris Nemtsov’s murder was organised by the agencies outside Russia who are trying to organise a Russian Maidan,” wrote Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin analyst, on Facebook. “The enemies of Putin have killed one of Putin’s strongest critics in order to push the blame on to Putin.”

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said: “It goes without saying that this was a 100% provocation.”

The website Life News, seen as close to Russia’s security services, suggested the killing could have been linked to Nemtsov’s lover having an abortion.