With Nemtsov gone, Russian opposition wonders who is left to take on Vladimir Putin
With the opposition leader Nemtsov murdered and other high-profile dissenters in prison or exiled, voices railing at Kremlin now thinned
Russia's parliament is dominated by the pro-Putin United Russia party but also has three parties nominally in opposition: Just Russia, the Liberal Democrats and the Communists. While these parties are given airtime on television and - especially in the case of the Communists - have a genuine electorate, they are best described as "systemic opposition", managed by the Kremlin.
Among the "non-systemic" opposition, there are few politicians who have much of a national profile, with the restrictions of state television meaning it is hard to gain a real platform. Harassment, threats and fatigue have led many into either jail or exile. Now that Nemtsov has been silenced, here are a list of the main opposition figureheads.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky: Once Russia's richest man, Khodorkovsky was jailed in 2003, on charges widely believed to be politically motivated after he began financing political parties. He spent a decade in jail but was released in December 2013 after Putin granted him amnesty.
Khodorkovsky was immediately flown to Berlin and now lives in Zurich. In December, he said he believes he will be arrested if he returns to Russia.
He has set up the Open Russia Foundation and said he is prepared to go "all the way" to change the regime in Russia. However, although Khodorkovsky may have impressed some with his stoical handling of a decade in prison, most Russians have little regard for those who made billions in the 1990s, and it is also unclear how much he can influence politics from outside the country.
