‘We haven’t forgotten’: thousands march in Moscow two years after death of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov
Despite claims from officials that the case has been solved, Nemtsov’s family and allies insist the probe into his death has left the masterminds untouched
Thousands of Russians marched through central Moscow on Sunday in memory of slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, two years after he was shot dead near the Kremlin.
The assassination of the former deputy prime minister on February 27, 2015 was the highest-profile killing of a critic of President Vladimir Putin since the ex-KGB officer took charge in 2000.
Five Chechen men from Russia’s volatile North Caucasus are currently on trial for carrying out a contract hit, but those who ordered the killing have not been brought to justice.
The investigation stopped at the level of those who carried out the murder but nothing has been done to find those who ordered it
“We came to pay tribute to the honesty and bravery of Boris Nemtsov,” said pensioner Galina Zolina, clutching a bunch of red carnations. “We want to show the authorities that we haven’t forgotten.”
Nemtsov – who went from Kremlin insider under Boris Yeltsin to one of Putin’s fiercest foes – was hit in the back by four fatal shots as he walked home across a bridge by the Kremlin with his girlfriend.
The march was permitted by the authorities but not allowed to include a makeshift memorial officials have repeatedly sought to dismantle at the spot Nemtsov was killed.
Some 15,000 demonstrators surrounded by a heavy police presence waved Russian flags and posters criticising the Kremlin and Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, which Nemtsov had fiercely opposed right up to his death.
