Thousands march in Moscow to honour murdered politician

Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister in Boris Yeltsin’s government, was 55 when he was gunned down near the Kremlin on 27 Feburary past year, in what is believed to be a politically motivated killing.

A woman wipes a banner bearing a portrait of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov before the start of a memorial march marking the one-year anniversary of Nemtsov?s assassination in central Moscow, on February 27, 2016.

In Putin’s decade-and-a-half in power, Russian opposition groups have come under severe pressure, criticized by officials and state-controlled media as pawns of the West. Permission for their rallies is frequently denied. The military is not typically used at political rallies in the country.

Many opposition supporters say that even if Putin had no direct hand in Nemtsov’s killing, he bears responsibility for encouraging a truculent authoritarianism. But his supporters say the suspects are just low-level operatives who were paid to kill the opposition politician.

The authorities locked down central Moscow for Saturday’s event, sealing in the marchers with metal fencing guarded by police, some of whom wore body armour and helmets.

A line of flowers continued to be built Saturday on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky bridge in honour of Nemtsov.

Opposition leader Ilya Yashin said that Nemtsov’s killing was a terrorist act aimed at threatening those who disagree with Putin’s politics.

The scene of his crumpled body lying with brightly lit Kremlin towers in background was a grisly and vivid symbol of the dangers facing Russian opposition figures.

Opposition leader Mikhail Kasyanov laid a large bouquet of red roses at the memorial to Boris Nemtsov on a bridge in the shadow of the Kremlin. “We’re preparing to turn Putin’s imitation of elections into proper fair elections”.

The suspected killer served as an officer in the security forces of the Moscow-backed Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. The killing occurred on the eve of an opposition march against Putin that he was set to lead and shortly before the release of a damning report he complied on Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

“Someone was very afraid of this”, Poroshenko said Saturday in televised remarks during a visit to the city of Vinnytsia.

“We will find out his murderers, and those who ordered the murder – if not under the current leadership, then under the next one”, he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Mr. Kara-Murza and Mr. Gudkov were both skeptical of the announcement, saying they expect Mr. Kadyrov – a protégé of Mr. Putin’s, who controls a private militia recently estimated to number 30,000 men – will continue to wield wide influence in both Chechnya and Russian Federation.