Moscow. Putin’s political opponent, Boris Nemtsov, 55, is killed by four gunshots a few hundred meters from the Kremlin. Just a few weeks earlier, he had said in an interview that Putin wanted him dead. Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin immediately took control of the investigation, seizing all the material in Nemtsov’s office. Nemtsov was organizing a dossier and a demonstration to prove Russian troops were present in Ukraine. Putin will judge Nemtsov, a liberal former minister in Yeltsin’s government, as little more than an average citizen.
