Russian officials are serving up preposterous motives in the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov as tens of thousands of his supporters plan to march Sunday in his memory.
Kremlin allies are blaming Islamic extremism and the 55-year-old Nemtsov’s relationship with a 23-year-old model as possible motives for his murder on a bridge steps from Red Square.
Few dared suggest another motive: Nemtsov was a dogged critic of President Vladimir Putin.
The former deputy prime minister and prominent liberal political figure was gunned down late Friday as he walked across Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge with his girlfriend, Ukrainian model Anna Duritskaya.
“We have established that she recently flew from Moscow to Switzerland to have an abortion,” the state-controlled newspaper Izvestia “reported,” citing a law-enforcement source.
“The investigators are trying to establish whether Nemtsov was her only partner, and we are not excluding the possibility there was a personal conflict over her,” the report claimed.
Putin himself, meanwhile, vowed Saturday to punish Nemtsov’s killers and denounced the slaying as a “political murder” to discredit the Kremlin.
“We will do everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this foul and cynical crime and those who stand behind them are properly punished,” he said in a statement that offered condolences to Nemtsov’s mother.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which reports directly to Putin, said it would probe several theories — including claims that the killing was an attempt to destabilize Russia and make Nemtsov a martyr, or that it was linked to the Ukrainian conflict, or that it stemmed from his support of Charlie Hebdo journalists under threat by Islamic extremists.
“Nemtsov could have been a kind of sacrifice for those who stop at nothing to attain their political ends,” said committee spokesman Vladimir Markin.
Nemtsov’s backers called the claims red herrings.
Hours before his murder, Nemtsov went on the radio to urge people to join in a protest Sunday against Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. His supporters now plan to hold a vigil in Red Square instead to honor him.
“Boris declared that he would reveal persuasive evidence about the involvement of Russian armed forces in Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said. “Someone was very afraid of this. Boris was not afraid. The hangmen and executioners were afraid. They killed him.”
With Post Wire Services