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Russian Authorities Say Fellow Opposition Members May Have Killed Boris Nemtsov Intrigue and Fear Flood Russia After Killing of Boris Nemtsov
(about 4 hours later)
MOSCOW — As supporters of Boris Y. Nemtsov, the slain Russian opposition leader, laid flowers Saturday on the pavement where he had been shot dead hours earlier, the Russian authorities said they were investigating several theories about the crime, including the possibility that fellow members of the opposition had killed Mr. Nemtsov to create a martyr. MOSCOW — About two weeks before he was shot and killed in the highest-profile political assassination in Russia in a decade, Boris Y. Nemtsov met with an old friend to discuss his latest research into what he said was dissembling and misdeeds in the Kremlin.
He was, as always, pugilistic and excited, saying he wanted to publish the research in a pamphlet to be called “Putin and the War,” about President Vladimir V. Putin and Russian involvement in the Ukraine conflict, recalled Yevgenia Albats, the editor of New Times magazine. Both knew the stakes.
Mr. Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, knew his work was dangerous but tried to convince her that, as a former high official in the Kremlin, he enjoyed a certain immunity, Ms. Albats said.
“He was afraid of being killed,” Ms. Albats said. “And he was trying to convince himself, and me, they wouldn’t touch him because he was a member of the Russian government, a vice premier, and they wouldn’t want to create a precedent. Because as he said, one time the power will change hands in Russia again, and those who served Putin wouldn’t want to create this precedent.”
As supporters of Mr. Nemtsov laid flowers on the sidewalk where he was shot and killed late Friday, a shiver of fear moved through the political opposition in Moscow.
The worry was that the killing would become a pivot point toward an even less pluralistic form of government for Russian domestic politics, already under strain from Russia’s unacknowledged involvement in the war in Ukraine and runaway inflation in an economic crisis.
“Another terrible page has been turned in our history,” Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the exiled former political prisoner, wrote in a statement about the killing.
“For more than a year now, the television screens have been flooded with pure hate for us,” he wrote of the opposition to Mr. Putin. “And now everyone from the blogger at his apartment desk to President Putin himself is searching for enemies, accusing one another of provocation. What is wrong with us?”
Russian authorities said on Saturday that they were investigating several theories about the crime, some immediately scorned as improbable, including the possibility that fellow members of the opposition had killed Mr. Nemtsov to create a martyr.
That line of investigation would examine whether Mr. Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former first deputy prime minister and longtime leader of the opposition, had become a “sacrificial victim” to rally support for opponents of the government, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.That line of investigation would examine whether Mr. Nemtsov, a 55-year-old former first deputy prime minister and longtime leader of the opposition, had become a “sacrificial victim” to rally support for opponents of the government, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement.
The statement, the fullest official response to Mr. Nemtsov’s killing so far, said the police were pursing half a dozen leads in the case, the highest-profile assassination in Russia during the tenure of President Vladimir V. Putin. The statement, the fullest official response to Mr. Nemtsov’s killing so far, said the police were pursing half a dozen leads in the case, the highest-profile assassination in Russia during the tenure of Mr. Putin.
The committee also cited the possibility that Islamic extremists had killed Mr. Nemtsov over his position on the Charlie Hedbo shootings in Paris, saying that security forces had been aware of threats against him from Islamists. The committee also cited the possibility that Islamic extremists had killed Mr. Nemtsov over his position on the Charlie Hedbo shootings in Paris, saying that security forces had been aware of threats against him from Islamist militants.
The committee also said that “radical personalities” on one or another side of the Ukrainian conflict may have been responsible. The statement said the police were also considering possible business or personal disputes as motives. The committee also said that “radical personalities” on one or another side of the Ukrainian conflict might have been responsible. The statement said the police were also considering possible business or personal disputes as motives.
“The investigation is considering several versions,” the statements said. The first it listed was: “a murder as a provocation to destabilize the political situation in the country, where the figure of Nemtsov could have become a sort of sacrificial victim for those who stop at nothing to achieve their political goals.”“The investigation is considering several versions,” the statements said. The first it listed was: “a murder as a provocation to destabilize the political situation in the country, where the figure of Nemtsov could have become a sort of sacrificial victim for those who stop at nothing to achieve their political goals.”
This explanation echoed and elaborated on a statement posted overnight on the Kremlin website, which also characterized the murder as a “provocation.”This explanation echoed and elaborated on a statement posted overnight on the Kremlin website, which also characterized the murder as a “provocation.”
“The president noted that this cruel murder has all the signs of a contract killing and carries an exclusively provocative character,” the Kremlin statement said. “Vladimir Putin expressed his deep condolences to the relatives and loved ones of Boris Nemtsov, who died tragically.”“The president noted that this cruel murder has all the signs of a contract killing and carries an exclusively provocative character,” the Kremlin statement said. “Vladimir Putin expressed his deep condolences to the relatives and loved ones of Boris Nemtsov, who died tragically.”
Mr. Putin, in a message to Mr. Nemtsov’s mother released by the Kremlin on Saturday, said that “everything will be done so that the organisers and perpetrators of a vile and cynical murder get the punishment they deserve,” Agence France-Presse reported.
Life News, a television station with close ties to the Russian security services, quoted a source as suggesting that Mr. Nemtsov was murdered in revenge for having caused a woman to have an abortion.Life News, a television station with close ties to the Russian security services, quoted a source as suggesting that Mr. Nemtsov was murdered in revenge for having caused a woman to have an abortion.
While contract-style street killings like that of Mr. Nemtsov were commonplace in Moscow in the 1990s, such violence has dwindled under Mr. Putin, making the opposition leader’s murder all the more shocking. Investigations of contract killings in Russia often begin with the police publicly citing multiple theories and potential motives.
Law enforcement critics say this can serve to create a smokescreen of confusion in high-profile cases, but it also reflects a Soviet-era policy for managing the security services, under which investigators are credited with making progress when a version of events is ruled out — giving the police an incentive to begin with a wide array of improbable theories.Law enforcement critics say this can serve to create a smokescreen of confusion in high-profile cases, but it also reflects a Soviet-era policy for managing the security services, under which investigators are credited with making progress when a version of events is ruled out — giving the police an incentive to begin with a wide array of improbable theories.
Russia’s beleaguered, tiny opposition was left scrambling Saturday to react to the slaying. After laying flowers on the mound, and kneeling in respect before the blooms festooning the sidewalk on a rainy, glum midafternoon, Anatoly Chubais, a co-founder with Mr. Nemtsov of the Union of Right Forces political party, scorned the investigators’ claim.
Ilya Yashin, a co-founder of Mr. Nemtsov’s political party, and Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, issued statements saying that a rally planned for Sunday in opposition to the war in Ukraine, an event that Mr. Nemtsov had been promoting before his death, should be transformed into a memorial rally. They were asking the city authorities to amend the parade permit accordingly. A Moscow city official, Aleksei Maiorov, told Russian News Service this would not be possible, as parade permit applications must be submitted at least 10 days in advance. “Today, we had a statement that the liberal opposition organized the killing,” he said. “Before this, they wrote that the liberals created the economic crisis. In this country, we have created demand for anger and hate.”
Later, opposition figures wrote on social media that a permit for a memorial march had been granted for downtown Moscow. Ms. Albats, who had discussed with Mr. Nemtsov his last, unfinished research project, an expose of the unstated Russian military support for pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine, said of this state of affairs in domestic Russian politics, “we are at war now.”
Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko, wrote on his Facebook page that Mr. Nemtsov had been a “bridge between Ukraine and Russia” and that the “murderers’ shot has destroyed it. I think this is not an accident.” “People with dreams about Russia’s democratic future are at war,” she said. “Those who are believers in democracy, those who for some reason, back in the late 1980s, got on board this train, and had all these hopes and aspirations, they are at war today.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, issued an unusually emotional statement saying the killing “makes one sad and furious.” With Mr. Nemtsov’s death, he added, “Russia loses an experienced politician who was prepared to assume responsibility for his country.”
“With this murder, the effect of a fearless voice was silenced in a brutal and cowardly end,” he said, demanding a thorough investigation that would quickly bring the perpetrators to justice.