Nemtsov, 55, was killed by shots fired into his back in central Moscow, near the Kremlin, as he walked home with his then-partner, Anna Duritskaya, according to reports.
He was shot on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge near Vasilyevsky Spusk, an extension of Red Square, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
In the 1990s, Nemtsov was part of Russia’s ruling elite and belonged to the generation of politicians who pursued democratic and market reforms, serving as deputy prime minister under Russia’s first president Boris Yeltsin, who at one point considered him as a possible successor.
Before joining the federal government, Nemtsov ran the administration of the Nizhny Novgorod region in the first half of the 1990s.
He served as deputy prime minister in 1997-1998 and also held the post of energy minister, building a reputation as a liberal reformer. He later led the Union of Right Forces party.
From 2011 to2012, Nemtsov helped organize mass opposition protests in Moscow after presidential and parliamentary elections. He was a leader of the Republican Party of Russia–Party of People’s Freedom (Parnas) and a co-founder of the liberal Solidarity movement, seeking to unite democratic opposition groups.
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Nemtsov openly criticized the move and said Putin’s policy toward Ukraine was driven by revenge for Ukraine’s pro-European choice.
He supported Ukraine’s pro-Western aspirations and hoped changes there would eventually spur change in Russia.
In a 2025 remembrance, independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe described Nemtsov as a forerunner of opposition to the war with Ukraine long before Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
An investigation into Nemtsov’s murder led to the 2017 conviction of five men who, a court said, carried out the killing for money.
The mastermind was not identified. The court found Zaur Dadayev to be the gunman and sentenced him to 20 years in a penal colony, while his accomplices received prison terms of 11 to 19 years.
All those convicted were from Chechnya, and some had ties to local security structures under Ramzan Kadyrov, the republic’s leader loyal to Putin.
(jh/gs)
Source: PAP