The Assassination of Russian Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov Still Reverberates One Year After His Killing

A portrait of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead on Friday night, is seen during a march to commemorate him in central Moscow March 1, 2015. The words under the portrait reads “These bullets are meant for each of us.” REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Ilya Yashin, Moscow Times: Nemtsov Investigation Paves Way For More Assassinations in Russia

Boris Nemtsov never believed he would be murdered. Of course, he understood he might be harassed in one way or another. He knew the authorities might have plans to send him to prison. He felt this even more keenly after they called him in for questioning and searched his apartment. But he never for one minute imagined that someone could shoot him in the back.

Nemtsov occasionally recalled the time when then-FSB head and now President Vladimir Putin came to his government office asking for help in obtaining apartments for intelligence officers. Those FSB employees feel pretty high and mighty these days, but back in the 1990s they were just mid-level functionaries at best. Nemtsov pulled some strings for Putin and genuinely believed that the FSB chief would always remember the favor.

"I was deputy prime minister, Putin's boss," Nemtsov used to say. "They can't kill me."

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WNU Editor: I still fume inside when I remember his assassination .... this brings back the old monsters from Russia's past .... and the fear that it may come back. But what I find interesting about Ilya Yashin's article is his pointing out that there was a time that Boris Nemtsov was actually Putin's boss .... and that it was Boris Nemtsov who assisted Putin when he asked for help in obtaining apartments for his intelligence officers. That in the 1990s the FSB and other intelligence agencies were perceived (accurately) as mid-level bureaucrats .... a career choice that all but guaranteed a miserable job for the rest of your life. Unfortunately for Nemtsov .... it was not enough to guarantee his protection. Flash forward to today .... I still believe that Boris Nemtsov was murdered by a Chechen group who decided that such an act would curry favor with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Whether or not Ramzan Kadyrov ordered this assassination himself is still open to debate, but I do know that finding the truth behind this case is not going to happen with Putin in power .... it will happen when he is gone, and probably only a few years after that.