Nemtsov joins long list of those assassinated in post-Soviet Russia

[Blue_Tires]

Moscow — If the track record is anything to go by, Russians may never find out who gunned down liberal activist Boris Nemtsov on a bridge beside the Kremlin last Friday, or why.

Mr. Nemtsov, who served as deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, is by far the highest ranking official to meet such a fate. But he is only the latest of well over a dozen high-profile Russian politicians, human rights activists, and journalists who've been murdered over the last two decades in similarly professional style and almost certainly for political reasons.

And those are just the figures whose deaths made international headlines, such as investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya and human rights worker Natalya Estimirova, and it doesn't begin to illustrate the breadth of political assassinations in post-Soviet Russia. A compendium of journalists from across Russia's 11 time zones who've been slain in the line of work since 1993, prepared by Russian non-governmental groups, runs to well over 300 names.


Not a single one of those major cases, and very few of the lesser-known ones, has ever been fully solved. Even as tens of thousands of Russians gathered in downtown Moscow Sunday to mourn Nemtsov, the few people who keep track of such things were marking the 20th anniversary of the gangland-style murder of Vladislav Listyev, one of Russia's most celebrated political journalists and chief editor of Russia's public TV network. In terse remarks to reporters, spokesman for the Kremlin's Investigative Committee – the same body charged with hunting down Nemtsov's killers – insisted that Mr. Listyev's case is not closed and "investigative measures are under way to uncover the mastermind of this crime and every accomplice."

Oleg Orlov, chair of Memorial, Russia's largest human rights network, says this dismal record is the main reason most Russians shrug and say they doubt Nemtsov's murderers will ever be found. "Law and order is just on the surface; underneath there is no control. Nemtsov devoted himself to struggling for a law-governed state, but he fell victim to this reality," he says.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0302/Nemtsov-joins-long-list-of-those-assassinated-in-post-Soviet-Russia

Meanwhile, Snowden is living the charmed life in Moscow, and Greenwald posts a pro-Putin and pro-RT column three days apart...Time to start asking questions...

[Jefferson23]

1. This is a good piece on the subject.

*the fact that it happened right under the Kremlin wall indicates a high degree of confidence on the part of killers that they wouldn't get caught in that place," he says.

That was the biggest give away..no one gets murdered in front of the Kremlin.

It is too soon to say how Russians will respond in the long term, as the OP points out, that
is due to more factors than is covered here, but nonetheless a fair representation.

Many individuals who are perceived threats go to prison for bullshits reasons, and they
have other means to to frighten people, but this was no coincidence imho, that it
took place where it did. The photo of Nemtsov on the ground dead is a symbolic
measure to remind those who oppose the regime. He could have been murdered
anywhere, he did not use bodies guards and he used public transportation all
the time.

K&R

[Blue_Tires]

2. ttt