Moscow: Several thousand Muscovites marched on Sunday in frigid temperatures in memory of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov who was gunned down three years ago, a rare sanctioned opposition gathering ahead of next month’s presidential vote.
Prominent opposition figures joined ordinary Muscovites for the commemorative march in the centre of the Russian capital where temperatures dipped below minus 14 Celsius (7 Fahrenheit).
Some participants carried portraits of Nemtsov and flowers, while others held placards reading “I am not afraid” and “We remember, we won’t forgive.”
The rare permitted opposition gathering came ahead of March 18 presidential election widely expected to extend President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin rule until 2024.
Nemtsov, one of the most vocal Putin critics, was gunned down shortly before midnight on February 27, 2015, while walking across a bridge a short distance from the Kremlin.
In 2017, a court found a former officer from Chechnya guilty of murdering Nemtsov and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Four other men were found guilty of involvement in the killing.
But Nemtsov’s family and allies insist the authorities have failed to bring the masterminds to justice and point the finger of blame at Chechnya’s Moscow-backed strongman Ramzan Kadyrov — and the Kremlin itself.
Opposition politicians said that three years after Nemtsov’s murder the atmosphere in the country had gotten worse, with tolerance for dissent shrinking even further. “Those who ordered the assassination are free, no one has looked for them,” said Sergei Mitrokhin, a leader of the liberal party Yabloko.
In the second city of Saint Petersburg several hundred people turned up, some carrying placards.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said that a commemorative plaque would be put up on the Moscow block where Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister in the government of Boris Yeltsin, lived. — AFP
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