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Updated at 8.50pm
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN has vowed to punish the killers of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov as Russian opposition figures denounced what they called a “political murder” and Western leaders called for a full probe.
The 55-year-old former deputy premier, a vocal Putin critic prominent at opposition rallies, was shot in the back several times shortly before midnight yesterday as he walked across a bridge a stone’s throw from the Kremlin walls.
The brazen assassination is the latest in a string of murders of opposition figures in Putin’s 15 years in power and recalls the shooting of anti-Kremlin reporter Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down on Putin’s birthday in October 2006.
Putin blamed the assassination on foes trying to discredit the Kremlin, but said in a message to the victim’s mother that “everything will be done so that the organisers and perpetrators of a vile and cynical murder get the punishment they deserve.”
Rally
Allies of Nemtsov, a longtime anti-corruption crusader who served as deputy premier under Boris Yeltsin, linked his death to his political activities.
Hours before the killing, he went on air to urge Russians to join an opposition rally tomorrow against the Kremlin stance in Ukraine.
“There is already a list of unsolved political murders and attack in Russia,” Amnesty International said.
We cannot allow Boris Nemtsov to become just another name on this list.
Streams of mourners, many in tears, filed across the bridge today, heaping flowers and photos of Nemtsov at the spot where he fell.
Russian state television — which in recent years has denied Nemtsov airtime — gave lavish coverage to his murder.
Investigators said gunmen fired at least eight shots from a moving car as Nemtsov walked with a woman who was not injured. Russian television named her as 23-year-old Ukrainian model Anna Duritskaya.
‘Propaganda campaign of hatred’
Opposition figures said his death was linked to his outspoken opposition to Putin and in particular his criticism of Russia’s stand on the Ukraine conflict.
They pointed the finger at a climate of hatred whipped up by the Kremlin.
“The political responsibility for this murder lies with the authorities and personally President Putin — those who started and are fighting a war and are running a propaganda campaign of hatred in its support,” former Yabloko liberal party leader Grigory Yavlinsky wrote on Facebook.
“If a few days ago, people were walking round with a placard saying ‘let’s finish off the fifth column’, and today Nemtsov is killed, then let’s think what will happen tomorrow,” said a fellow deputy prime minister under Yeltsin, Anatoly Chubais, referring to a pro-Kremlin rally.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny questioned how Nemtsov could have been killed, saying he would have been under surveillance ahead of Sunday’s planned rally.
“I can’t believe that yesterday night he could have strolled towards the Kremlin without being watched,” he wrote in his blog.
US President Barack Obama condemned a “brutal” and “vicious murder” and urged a probe while British Prime Minister David Cameron said the “callous murder” must be investigated “fully, rapidly and transparently”.
‘Provocation’
Putin suggested the crime was aimed at smearing the authorities.
It “had all the hallmarks of a contract killing and is entirely provocative in nature,” he was quoted as saying by the Kremlin.
The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also claimed the killing was aimed at “destabilising the situation in the country, at heightening confrontation” with the West.
The powerful Investigative Committee leading the probe said it was looking into a possible “provocation to destabilise the political situation in the country.”
It listed as initial hypotheses a link to the Charlie Hebdo massacre, noting that Nemtsov had received threats after he condemned the killings in Paris, as well as the “situation inside Ukraine”.
Hours before his murder, Nemtsov urged Russians to show up for a rally calling for “an immediate end to the Ukraine war,” he said on popular Echo of Moscow radio, adding that Putin should quit.
Opposition activists scrapped the rally after news of his death while the authorities gave permission for a march in memory of Nemtsov through the city centre tomorrow afternoon.
Opposition leader
After leaving parliament in 2003, he led several opposition parties and groups.
A passionate orator with a rock star image and popular with women, Nemtsov was a key speaker at mass opposition rallies against Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012.
He wrote a series of reports critical of corruption and misspending under Putin.
In 2013, he said up to $30 billion of the estimated $50 billion assigned to the Olympic Games that Russia was to host in Sochi had gone missing.
The Kremlin has denied the claims.
- © AFP 2015.
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Another FFG record ..
Collectively , them two political parties have ruined Ireland . Vote for the cat next door rather than FFG
@BL Music: I actually would prefer to vote for my cat next door instead of the useless opposition.unfortunately.
@John Terry: the cat next door to me gets walked on a lead. True story.
@John Terry: If you do the same thing , don’t expect different results . Nobody could be as inept as the current shower. Look at homelessness’s, health, crime , the amount of people leaving the country , the decline in our cities , vulture funds, price gouging, the erosion of our neutrality , loss of our little sovereignty… the list goes on and on .. Anything would be better
@SF Means Sh!t 4 Free: but it’d give the powers that be a boot in the @r$€ that they need to do better. Seriously like, cost of living and housing aside, even if you or your child get injured/badly ill over the weekend and get referred to hospital you can be there for up to 24 hours before being seen or even worse, kept in until Monday morning until someone is available. The acceptance of poor standards in every ministry in this state is a dark legacy for FFG, let alone the vast sums of OUR money is wasted year in year out for the taxes and levies we pay.
@James Reardon: everyone in this country would love a better government,but unfortunately we have weak opposition.I’ve voted social democrats the last few years ,not that I want them in government but because they are to me the only option on the ballot paper.sad reality.
@John Terry: I was Labour until they screwed over their whole voting base. Never again. I’ll keep voting SF out of protest, let them put up or shut up.
@BL Music: all populist tripe
How on earth are people meant to get by when a bog standard apartment with 1 room is minimum €1500 per month?
@Sylvia Power: sharing…
@no no no: So share a bed with someone in that 1 bed Apartment is it? Right.. You’re part of the problem.
@Chett Richards: Do you disapprove of couples living in sin together or something??
@Sylvia Power: Emigrate. Hard to believe that it’s cheaper to live in Switzerland at this stage.
@Fallible Guy: London too.
We now live in a society where it’s survival of the fittest and duck everyone else. Capitalism as we know it, is no longer fit for purpose.
@Mike Dunne: it’s the same capitalism that generates the wealth that pays for the services those in need use
@Oisin CK: The same capitalism that needs to be bailed out by the taxpayers after the capitalist system facilated by politicians fail. The same taxpayers are then forced into austerity inflicted by the same politicians to repay for the gangsterism of capitalism. Remember the €60 Billions plus still owed by every citizen of this state due to the gangsterism of the banks and developers facilated by the same political parties that are again in power.
Brutal,they’re destroying peoples lives with they’re inability to make the necessary decisions to solve the problem but lining they’re pockets up well, terrible to say they’ve had almost a decade of this going on and all that’s happening is it’s getting worse,I really don’t want to have to watch my kids emigrate because of the future here which basically is work every hour sent to you and have sweet **** all what a joke for a rich country it’s so badly managed
Typical. And yet so many people here want you to believe a Party that’s never had any power in the state is the biggest threat to your existence.
@Chris O’Brien: opposition parties should be running away in the polls but they are not.that tells you they are not trusted.
@Chris O’Brien: plenty of people are aware of the damage SF/IRA has done to this state as well as their numerous failures in Govt just up the road in NI.
Not surprising. A rising population and no new houses available to buy for rental or to owner occupy. The council and AHBs are buying up all the new housing. Everything new hoovered up.
A split society. Lots of extra housing for people in need, but lots of extra people in need as Ireland’s self serving leftie lawyer elite foist a load of legal obligations on the rest of its citizens as they soak up all the money from it via their bloated pay, fees and investments in asylum centre property.
Private rental sector is contracting, less supply leads to higher prices, or new supply is new build to rent, with no cap on the rent due to previous letting.
It’s simplistic to call it landlord greed. Interest rates go up, so landlords pay more interest to the bank, they pass this cost to tenant. Maintenance/building costs go up etc.
Pre-existing tenancies are almost all limited by RPZ legislation and anyone who evades it should be reported. Any landlord not paying tax should be reported and done for interest and penalties.
Blame the open door immigration policy, the inflation driven by large corporate activity due to our open economy policy, the “Ireland of a thousand welcomes” messages issued by Roderick O’Gorman in multiple non European languages about giving refugees free own door accomodation, the EU sending us lots of their excess refugees, etc.
In an effort to protect tenants, and keep rents low to keep the left happy, they have inadvertently done the opposite created this disaster.
Before the RTB, 15 years ago there was so supply chasing too few tenants. Landlords had no choice but to keep cutting rents. It didn’t matter if you got evicted as you could move into the same house down the street and probably get a better deal.
The quicker they remove the RTB and reset all the tenancy laws, the better.
@Ray Winters:
I work in the sector, RTB are a complete waste of space.
But trying to suggest the reason not enough houses is ludicrous.
The reason the rents dropped was we had 10 years of building 75,000 houses per year when we needed 50,000.
Since then we have 10 years at 25,000 when we needed 50,000
Another lie by the journal this week. Rents in Cavan have rose by over 100% this year alone. It’s a shit hole of a town and we are nearly paying Dublin prices
@Thomas Reddy:
I was actually going to rubbish your statement by going on Daft and quoting a real add but then….?
Up to €1,700 for a 2 bed apt in Cavan town?? Jeez
@P.J. Nolan: That’s a local farmer renting that apartment. She bought about ten properties in the last three years and has kicked tenants out and put the rent up by 150%. The local FF politicians Brendan Smith and Niamh Smyth know about this and have done absolutely nothing about it.
@Thomas Reddy: you will likely find the local politicians are landlords too
@P.J. Nolan: I get an 2 bed beside central London for less then that! Says it all
FFG. Treasonous.
@lWOk0fWf: FF and FG = democracy, jobs and investment. SF/IRA = thugs and flight of investment
@Oisin CK: nonsense.
Stockholm syndrome right there.
Would be great to live in a country where the struggles of average people and homeless children would get reported on daily and not be covered up and ignored by the biggest media companies under orders of the government. All hail FFG, we sheep shall obey!
I know yer all gonna hate me here. I have an apartment which I let (just 1), I pay %52 taxes on this, I rent for 1600 and I get 770, each time a tenant leaves I need to put approx. 3k of work into renovation. Anytime goes wrong I need to fix it. The government gets most the money not me.
We lived happy life four years ago with 5 children in one bedroom apartment. Many people just blame everyone and everything but this is their own problem! Nobody needs to know that!
The government need to go ASAP the cost of rents in this country are a disgrace a tiny 3 bed my daughter lives in with 3kids costs €1500 amth she couldn’t keep up mortgage repayment on her home after her husband took his own life during lockdown as he felt he couldn’t provide for them all. They have 2 kids with special needs. I don’t understand how they can get away with allowing greedy landlords to charge so much, a friend of mine signed a lease on a home in Sweden just 2 days ago for his wife and family 6 bedroom house the rent is just €1100 amth we are being robbed every direction we go in this country it has to stop
Looking absolutely forward too voteing for SF
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