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| People with Russian national flags march in memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down on Friday, Feb. 27, 2015 near the Kremlin, in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, March 1, 2015. Thousands converged Sunday in central Moscow to mourn veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov, whose killing on the streets of the capital has shaken Russia’s beleaguered opposition. They carried flowers, portraits and white signs that said “I am not afraid.” |
MOSCOW (AP)
-- For the tens of thousands bearing flowers and tying black ribbons to
railings in honor of slain Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov,
the solemn march through the Moscow drizzle on Sunday was a time for
silence, not slogans.
The marchers
occasionally broke into chants of "Russia without Putin," or "Say no to
war," but often the only sound was the steady thwack of police
helicopters overhead or the hum of police boats patrolling the shores of
the Moscow River.
While the killing of
Nemtsov has shaken the Russian opposition, which sees the Kremlin as
responsible, it is unclear whether his death will be enough to
invigorate the beleaguered movement. Despite the Ukraine conflict and
Russia's economic crisis, support for President Vladimir Putin has been
above 80 percent in the past year.
Since mass
anti-Putin protests brought hundreds of thousands to the streets of
Moscow in 2011 and 2012, Putin has marginalized and intimidated his
political opponents, jailing some, driving others into exile, and
ramping up fines and potential jail time for those detained at protests.
The
55-year-old Nemtsov was among the few prominent opposition figures who
refused to be cowed. But while many at the march expressed respect for
his long political career and grief at his loss, few believed that his
death would spark major change in Russia because of the Kremlin's
control over national television, where a vast majority of Russians get
their news.
"Maybe if 100 people were to die
people would rise up, but I don't really believe in that," said Sergei
Musakov, 22. "People are so under the influence of the (TV) box that
they will believe anything that television tells them. If it tells them
that terrorists from the Islamic State group came to Russia in order to
blow up the fifth column, they'll believe it."
The
Kremlin had identified Nemtsov as among the leaders of a "fifth
column," painting him and other opposition figures as traitors in the
service of a hostile West.
About 30,000 people
attended the march, making it the largest opposition rally in more than
a year. The demonstrators bore Russian flags and signs that read "I am
not afraid" or "Propaganda kills." At the site where Nemtsov was killed,
a pile of flowers grew by the minute, as mourners tossed down bouquets
of every color.
Nemtsov was gunned down
shortly before midnight Friday as he walked across a bridge near the
Kremlin. The killing came just hours after a radio interview in which he
denounced Putin's "mad, aggressive policy" in Ukraine.
At
the time of his death, Nemtsov was working on a report that he believed
proved that Russian troops were fighting alongside the separatists in
Ukraine, despite the official denials.
No one
has been arrested in the killing. Investigators said they were looking
into several possible motives and have offered 3 million rubles (nearly
$50,000) for information about the shooting.
TV
Center, a station controlled by the Moscow city government, broadcast a
poor-resolution video from one of its web cameras that it said shows
Nemtsov and his date shortly before the killing.
The
station, which superimposed its own time code on the footage, circled
figures that it said were Nemtsov and the woman walking across the
bridge on a rainy night. A snowplow that moved slowly behind the couple
obscured the view of the shooting.
TV Center
then circled what it said was the suspected killer jumping into a
passing car. The authenticity of the video could not be independently
confirmed.
Investigators said Sunday they were
again questioning the woman, Ukrainian citizen Anna Duritskaya. Russian
media have identified her as a model and shown photos of her in
alluring poses.
Fellow opposition activists said they hoped Nemtsov's death would encourage people to take action, rather than intimidate them.
"Essentially
it is an act of terror," said Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader and
friend. "It is a political murder aimed at frightening the population,
or the part of the population that supported Nemtsov or did not agree
with the government. I hope we won't get scared, that we will continue
what Boris was doing."
Mikhail Kasyanov, a
former prime minister who joined the opposition, told the crowd the
killing should be a turning point for Russia "for the simple reason that
people who before thought that they could quietly sit in their kitchens
and simply discuss problems within the family, now will start
reconsidering everything that's going on in our country."
Since
Nemtsov's death, investigators, politicians and political commentators
on state television have suggested numerous motives for the attack. The
most popular theory seemed to be that Western secret services were
behind the hit, with the aim of destabilizing Russia. Putin's spokesman
said the president saw the attack as a "provocation" against the state.
Some bristled at Western coverage that suggested Nemtsov was killed for his relentless opposition to Putin.
"We
haven't even recovered, the man hasn't even been buried, and the West
is shoving down our throats that Russia supposedly has killed a key
opposition politician," Dmitry Kiselyov, an influential television
anchor famous for his anti-Western broadcasts, said on his Sunday
evening show.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had no intelligence on who was behind the shooting.
"The
bottom line is we hope there will be a thorough, transparent, real
investigation, not just of who actually fired the shots, but who, if
anyone, may have ordered or instructed this or been behind this," Kerry
said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
Kiselyov
noted that while Nemtsov was known in Russia from his political activity
in the 1990s, when he served as a deputy prime minister overseeing
reforms, he was no longer popular. The anchor suggested that the West
may have believed his death would resonate more with average Russians
than his political activity:
"When he was alive, Nemtsov was no longer
necessary to the West, he had no prospects. But dead, he was a lot more
interesting."
For those at the march, it's that rhetoric on state television that makes the prospects for change dim.
"From
my experience, trying to convince people isn't possible," said Mikhail
Trofimenko, a 42-year-old screenwriter. "I think things will only get
worse, but I hope that by some miracle Russia will not fall apart and
remain a united country."
He held up a painting of the Russian flag riddled with four bullet holes, the number found in Nemtsov's body.
Another mourning march was held earlier Sunday in St. Petersburg, drawing several thousand people.
Nelly
Prusskaya, a 66-year-old doctor, said she came to pay her respects to
Nemtsov. "I also came to say that I'm against the war in Ukraine," she
said. "I'm against political murders."
