No matter how you look at it, the most inappropriate place was chosen for the murder of politician Boris Nemtsov. Firstly, in full view. Secondly, there should be special services around. Thirdly, by and large, if something goes wrong, there is nowhere to hide.

This choice of killers can only be explained by the specifics of the order. And the desire not only to shoot a person, but also to actually do it publicly.

According to the official version, the murder of Boris Nemtsov was committed at this very place. Today there is a huge mountain of flowers laid here. And small posters. There are candles around the parapet.

The place of the politician’s death from the other side, that is, if you look at Red Square. The Kremlin wall is very close, across the road. Below the parapet of the bridge is Vasilievsky Descent.

Video cameras on poles: not on every pole, but they still exist. Some of them are aimed at the road, and some should cover the sidewalk.

However, it should be noted that in the “spy” business, the mess is the same as everywhere else. One of two things: either it was sculpted by Soviet specialists, or somehow for kickbacks. The tangle of wires is such that they are simply networks: not a single Rust will fly by anymore.

Obviously, the video filming shown on the TVC channel was conducted from the opposite side. But not opposite, but further from the Kremlin. There's nothing directly across the street.

In addition to the cameras on the poles, they are most likely located on this nearby building.

In fact, most likely, there should be a camera on the nearest Kremlin tower. It is aimed directly at the bridge.

There are a lot of police around today - literally a squad of two or three people every ten meters.

We can say that today everything is under control. The enemy will not pass on either side, either by land or by water. Apparently, like on that ill-fated evening, they will not throw themselves under the killer’s bullets, but this time they will probably conscientiously write down the license plate number of the departing car.

In media reports, a version was voiced that the killer was waiting for the victim on the stairs leading to Vasilyevsky Spusk. This is the view from it. Ahead is a parking lot where the driver could wait for the moment. Then, most likely, the killer, when Nemtsov was already on the bridge, walked towards him along the stairs, and the driver drove straight, turned right and ended up on the spot to pick up his accomplice. In general, this is the only exit from the parking lot, this is how traffic is organized here, and straight ahead is Red Square.

View of the stairs on which the killer could wait for his victim, from the other side, from below. Here, under the bridge, there is an incomprehensible “institution”. What is behind the doors is unknown. There is no sign. Everything is shabby, like everywhere else in the center of Moscow, if not visible to foreigners.

It is no coincidence that the bridge on which Boris Nemtsov was killed is called Bolshoy Zamoskvoretsky. It is quite long and offers a view of the Moscow Kremlin. Today, many people take photographs of the view.

It is truly sad that one of the most beautiful places in Moscow, overlooking the Kremlin and the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin, which is popularly called St. Basil's Cathedral, became the site of the murder of a worthy man.

But if you cross the bridge, the beautiful picture for tourists ends. And construction begins. This is the view that opens up if you look over the parapet. In fact, here you can not only kill a person, but also hide the body on Friday so that it will only be found on Monday.

And if you go even further along Bolshaya Ordynka Street towards the house where Boris Nemtsov lived, then there are places where one could wait for the victim much more safely. For example, on the left, where the sidewalk appears to be on two levels.

I would not like to draw any conclusions. However, there are some points worth paying attention to. First of all, the option voiced in a number of sources seems acceptable and possible. The killer and the driver could have been in the car under the stairs in the parking lot. Someone else should have given them the start command when Boris Nemtsov and his companion were already walking across the bridge.

Next, the direct perpetrator climbs the steps, walks towards the victim, passes by, turns around and shoots in the back. During this time, the driver drives straight towards Red Square, then right and right again, onto the bridge, where he picks up the killer. Then they escape from the crime scene together.

Second point: cameras are there - everywhere. They can be seen with naked gas from all sides. Therefore, choosing this particular place to commit a crime could have been done either by a suicide, or by a person who was convinced of a very serious cover-up, and by several “offices.”

Moreover, the choice seems strange, considering that just 50-100 meters further from the center it is a thousand times easier to commit a crime. In addition, there are escape routes if something unexpected happens. And from the place of Boris Nemtsov’s murder there is only one road leading - forward along the bridge.

Thus, it turns out that the criminals actually committed murder in the most inappropriate place. They could not help but understand that later it would be broadcast almost online, later or later. Not to mention the evidence left behind - video camera recordings.

It is quite possible that this was the will of the customer. But it’s worth emphasizing that you have to be completely frostbitten to take on such a performance. And there will be many more versions of why the crime was committed this way.

Everyone today has their own version of what happened. Everyone is their own interrogator and investigator. Therefore, I specially posted the source files of my photographs - a large volume, so that those who wish could study the details that interest them on their own.

Kindly request: if anyone wants to use these photos in their own publications, please provide a link to the author. At the same time, I understand that I did this work so that we someday know the truth. Therefore, anyone, provided the author is indicated, can use these images completely free of charge for any purpose.

Additionally: article about the murder of Boris Nemtsov “Putin does not rule Russia”

The longer the investigation remains silent about the circumstances of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov and the results of his investigation, the more oddities and inconsistencies emerge.

Let's recall the facts.

Nemtsov and his girlfriend, Ukrainian model Anna Duritskaya, with whom he allegedly lived together for three years, had dinner at a restaurant in GUM and decided to walk to his apartment, located about an hour’s walk from Red Square. At 11:30 pm on the bridge, either the killer caught up with them or jumped out from under the bridge, who shot Nemtsov six times point-blank in the back, then got into the waiting car and drove away. The murder was recorded by the only video camera working in the area at that time, but the very moment of the politician’s execution was hidden by an inopportunely pulled up harvester.

Let's start with it.

At 23:30 the streets of Moscow are no longer cleaned. Moreover, there was no need for the cleaning machine to stand on the bridge: stopping cars on the bridge is generally strictly prohibited. One might assume that the car had broken down, but both before and after the murder it was moving normally. Moreover, he moved almost at the same speed as Nemtsov and his companion, reliably blocking them from the video camera.

The killer was absent from the video camera frame for exactly two seconds: from 23.31.14 to 23.31.16. During these two seconds, the killer jumped out of the car, approached Nemtsov, fired six shots and ran out from behind the snow blower towards the car that had pulled up behind him. This alone refutes the whole harmonious picture that was painted to gullible readers. The fact is that the killer fired from a Makarov pistol. However, the maximum rate of fire of the Makarov pistol is 30 rounds per minute. It takes 12 seconds to fire 6 shots from the Makarov. And no less, because this pistol only takes about a second to eject the cartridge case and cock the bolt - and this is under ideal conditions.

The killer ran close to Nemtsov and shot point blank - this is evidenced by the nature of the three wounds (directly in the back), and by Anna Duritskaya. However, out of six shots, the killer hit only four times. Nemtsov was not a small man; it would have been impossible to miss him even from a greater distance. The discrepancy between the number of bullets and the shell casings remaining at the crime scene speaks volumes, but more on that later.

Weapon selection. The Makarov pistol is a weapon that killers never choose. It is intended for the police, its main function is to stop a criminal, not to kill him. The bullet in the Makarov pistol has a low initial speed - 315 meters per second, and insignificant power - 300 joules. If Nemtsov had been at least wearing a thin Kevlar vest, he would have remained alive. In addition, all Makarov pistols, without exception, are recorded in databases. There are more than enough other, much more effective killing weapons on the Russian black market.

Confusion with cartridges of different production times and different manufacturers. As a rule, Makarov pistols fall into the hands of criminal elements in two ways: either they are stolen from military units, or taken away from the police. In both cases, the pistol comes with a loaded magazine, which contains cartridges from the same production time and from the same manufacturer. A different picture can only be in one case - if the cartridges (or cartridges) were urgently collected, so to speak, from the bottom of the barrel, for example, in an evidence warehouse in a police department or other special service.

Nemtsov was hit by four bullets. Anyone who has experienced gunshot wounds knows the impact of a bullet - especially the slow-moving, massive Makarov pistol bullet with a diameter of 9 millimeters and a weight of 10 grams. The human body is literally thrown away. Usually a person falls after the first bullet hit - however, Nemtsov stood for six seconds (taking into account the rate of fire of the Makarov pistol). After which he fell on his back - although he should have been thrown forward by the shots.

Another strange thing: there was not a drop of blood near the body. Initially, it was assumed that the politician was shot from a special small-caliber weapon. Only in this case and only if Nemtsov had fallen on his stomach would there have been no blood. A bullet from a Makarov pistol leaves a huge hole - about a centimeter in diameter for the entrance hole.

According to the official statement, death occurred two minutes after the assassination attempt. During this time, the human heart pumps 12 liters of blood. Nemtsov has three entrance holes on his back and two exit holes on his stomach. Through these holes, if they were made at the crime scene and while the person was alive, almost all the blood should have flowed out. The body should have literally been lying in a puddle - as always happens with gunshot wounds.

However, if you look at the photo of the murdered man, even more questions arise. Stains caused by blood flow are clearly visible on the body. These spots form within 3-5 hours after death.

Three bullets hit Nemtsov in the back. One hit the head through the neck. Such a shot can only be made if the person is lying on his stomach, prone - and they are shooting at him from above and from behind. And it is this shot that most closely resembles the so-called “control” shot.

About disposition. The murder took place about 100 meters from a bus stop where there were people. There is very busy vehicular and pedestrian traffic on the Moskvoretsky Bridge at this time. However, the video camera clearly shows that for some time before and after the murder there was no one on the bridge. The shots from Makarov's pistol are loud enough to be heard 100 meters from the scene - but so far there have been no witnesses who heard the shots or saw the moment of the murder. There is only a certain passer-by who allegedly walked 80 meters behind Nemtsov and his companion, and, seeing Nemtsov fallen, ran up to him and helped him get up. But he also does not say that he heard shots, does not say anything about what Duritskaya was doing at that moment, and most importantly, no passerby is visible in the video recording.

But you can see how Duritskaya, after standing near Nemtsov’s body for 30 seconds, calmly approached the driver of the harvesting vehicle and talked with him for four minutes. She doesn’t remember what, supposedly due to the stress she suffered. Four minutes of conversation is a lot; during this time you can call the police ten times (which was not done either by Duritskaya, who after three years of living in Russia did not know the numbers of the special services, or by the driver of the cleaning truck). Immediately after the conversation with Duritskaya, the cleaning vehicle drove off and disappeared for a long time from all police reports.

Let us note that according to the initial version, which was actively disseminated in the first few hours after the murder, the driver fired from an approaching car. A little later the messages were corrected: he jumped out of the approaching car. But in the video there is no car that drove up to the key moment - the killer appeared either from a harvesting vehicle or out of nowhere.

Cherchez la femme?

About Duritskaya. Until the moment of the murder, there is no information about Duritskaya and her long-term relationship with Nemtsov. Although, by the standards of the Moscow elite, this is a topic for quite active discussion. Especially considering Nemtsov’s well-known weakness for beautiful girls, with whom he regularly appeared at various meetings and performances - and always with different ones. Information about Duritskaya is available only on two websites of Kyiv modeling agencies, where she actually once acted as a model.

However, the morning after Nemtsov’s murder, a harmonious version appeared that Duritskaya and the politician had almost a family, they had lived together for three years (which none of the politician’s friends ever mentioned), and she was even pregnant by him and had an abortion in Switzerland. Everything is beautiful if you don’t know Nemtsov.

Nemtsov was a great lover and connoisseur of beauties, a snob and bon vivant. And Duritskaya, with all due respect to her, is far from beautiful, not smart and not a society lady. An ordinary and very unlucky Kiev model, one of thousands, moreover, repeatedly seen in scandalous connections on the territory of Ukraine. Even if Nemtsov could fall for such mediocrity, a couple of weeks would be enough for him to play with it and quit. And even more so for any complication such as pregnancy.

Duritskaya was released home a day after the assassination attempt. Despite the fact that she categorically refused to take a lie detector test (which in itself should have aroused suspicion among investigators). It doesn't happen that way. In the Russian investigative system, the only and key witness is not released to another country within 24 hours - due to the very organization of the process. However, the investigators were content with the lawyer’s absurd phrase “the veracity of her words is beyond doubt.” This, excuse me, is nonsense - everything without exception should raise doubts among investigators, especially in such a high-profile case.

However, the situation with Duritskaya is generally extremely dark. For example, the VKontakte page, allegedly belonging to Duritskaya, was blocked immediately after the assassination “for violating the rules of the site.” However, the ubiquitous Yandex says that Olga Popova’s page from Yekaterinburg was located at this address. There are only about a dozen photographs of Duritskaya - and these are not photographs from modeling shows, of which any model must have hundreds. These are ordinary, not entirely successful everyday photographs.

Well, about the situation in general. According to the official version, Nemtsov met the girl in GUM to have dinner there. However, in GUM there are no decent restaurants of the level of dollar millionaire Nemtsov - there are mainly cafes and coffee shops there. In addition, Nemtsov and his girlfriend allegedly left the restaurant at 23:00 or even a little later - it would take no more than 15 minutes to walk to the murder scene. But. GUM and all establishments in it are open until exactly 22:00. Let us note that nowhere, in any source, is the restaurant named where the couple allegedly dined: later we will understand that there is every reason for such secrecy.

For what purpose did the couple go for a walk? On the evening of February 27, it was uncomfortable in the capital: wind, sometimes snow, temperatures around zero. If you believe the official version, Nemtsov and Duritskaya have been close for three years - therefore, the time for romantic walks has long passed. As can be seen in the photographs, Nemtsov was dressed very lightly: windbreaker, T-shirt, jeans. This is not clothing for walking in this weather.

Let's draw a conclusion.

It is quite obvious that Nemtsov was killed not on the bridge and not at 23:00, but in another place and much earlier. Most likely, the body was brought in the same cleaning truck: that is why it stood for so long near the crime scene. Apparently, the plan was somewhat different - there is no other way to explain the confusion with the number of bullets and cartridges found, as well as the discrepancy in the cartridges.

Duritskaya remained alive because she was a necessary element of the combination: she was needed in order to testify to the fact that Nemtsov was killed by a killer on the bridge. A day after she played her role, she was hastily sent home - to Ukraine. So as not to blurt out too much. There is a possibility that her future life will be short - no one needs such witnesses.

The scheme is clumsy and primitive - however, as experience shows, this is approximately how clumsy the Russian special services work.

And now the most important question: why?

Over the past week, the information field was literally flooded with “authoritative” opinions that the authorities would not benefit from Nemtsov’s murder.

This is wrong.

Nemtsov is the only clear opposition leader who did not succumb to persuasion to cooperate with the authorities and did not agree to the role of a “toy” opposition (unlike Yavlinsky, Kasparov, Limonov, Kasyanov). He was charismatic, likable and not involved in all sorts of dubious frauds, unlike Navalny. A day after the incident, Nemtsov was supposed to gather people for the “Spring” rally, for which 100 thousand people were registered in Moscow alone.

2015 is not 2012, when the country swayed under the pressure of the rallies on Bolotnaya and Manezhka. Now there is a full-fledged crisis in the country, millions of unemployed, the level of intensity of passions makes political scientists and analysts no longer remember the revolution, but the civil war. The authority of authorities below the presidential level is rapidly declining - and Nemtsov was the only one who could ask tough and intelligent questions to government officials. To which there would be no answers.

But that’s not even the most important thing. A new presidential campaign will start in two years. And 57-year-old Nemtsov - we repeat, smart, handsome, charismatic, educated, capable of complex political discussions, a current regional deputy and a very rich man - would be an ideal alternative candidate. Apart from him, there is no other such candidate.

The investigation and the authorities immediately called the murder of the famous politician a contract killing, but there were so many versions about the motives of the crime that it has still not been possible to choose a priority one. The only thing the participants in the investigation are sure of is that the perpetrators of the crime were not professionals in their field. In any case, they used far from reliable weapons and ammunition that were more than 20 years old, and besides, they left the main witness of the incident alive.

"The Most Significant Crime"

Eyewitnesses to the incident were Mr. Nemtsov’s friend, fashion model Anna Duritskaya, and several passers-by. True, their stories yielded little to the investigation. According to Mrs. Duritskaya, sources told Kommersant, that day they met with Mr. Nemtsov at the Bosco Cafe in GUM, and after having dinner and a short walk around Red Square, they went on foot to the politician, who lived in house N3 on Malaya Ordynka Street.

The couple had not walked hundreds of meters along the Moskvoretsky Bridge when a man approached them and shot Mr. Nemtsov in the back with a pistol. The killer was picked up from the scene of the murder by a white car, in which he sat in the front passenger seat.

["Izvestia", 03/02/2015, "In the Nemtsov murder case, investigators are counting on an identikit": The main witnesses in the Nemtsov murder case so far are his girlfriend Anna Duritskaya and the young man who followed them. However, the girl was in shock, so she says she doesn’t remember anything.
Victor M. saw the killer from afar, but managed to remember something. According to him, it was a man 170–175 cm tall, of normal build, dark hair, short haircut. He was wearing jeans and a brown sweater. […]
The driver of the harvesting truck, Sergei B., who was driving along the bridge at the time of the murder, could not tell the investigators much. He did not see the killer and realized what happened only when Anna Duritskaya turned to him.
According to Sergei, he was finishing processing the curbs and when he looked up, he noticed a man lying on the asphalt in the rearview mirror. When Sergei turned off the turbine and got out of the car, a girl ran up to him.
“I asked what was wrong with the man and how he was feeling, and she said that he had been shot and asked what to do, who to call,” said Sergei. Having called an ambulance, he left the scene. - Insert K.ru]

In hot pursuit, the police did not find the car with the killer and his accomplice. The fact is that the witness Duritskaya, shocked by the incident, could not even clearly name the make of the car. And the recordings from the surveillance cameras installed in the area turned out to be either not very clear or completely absent, since they were turned off during repair work. By the way, a couple of Ford cars, a Kia Rio and a white VAZ-2110 were put on the wanted list. All these cars were discovered by detectives, but it turned out that their owners had nothing to do with what happened. On Saturday, operatives became interested in another car - a Lada Priora, registered in Ingushetia - it was found near the Smolenskaya metro station. The Lada was used by two residents of the republic, who, however, also had nothing to do with it. Yesterday, on exits from Moscow, traffic police officers, reinforced with special forces, stopped and checked mainly red sedans.

The very moment of the crime was filmed, albeit from a distance, by a camera from the TVC channel, the recordings of which are used in news releases. According to it, the murder on the bridge occurred at 23:31.

Based on what was seen, it can be assumed that the killer was apparently waiting for his victim on the side stairs leading to the bridge, from where, most likely on a signal from his accomplices, he quickly climbed onto the pedestrian path and opened fire on Mr. Nemtsov.

Old cartridges are back in business

On the other hand, according to experts, the presence of cartridges from different manufacturers and years of manufacture in the clip may indicate that they were, as Kommersant’s interlocutor from law enforcement agencies put it, “collected from all pockets.” That is, the attackers had very limited access to ammunition, usually supplied in packs of 50 rounds each or in boxes of 1,000. In addition, they try to use up old ammunition at shooting ranges, issuing relatively new ones for combat operations or for official needs.

At the same time, according to preliminary data, a Makarov pistol could have been used to kill Mr. Nemtsov or, as in the case of Novaya Gazeta columnist Anna Politkovskaya, gas "Izh", converted to fire live ammunition. The latter weapon is, of course, easier to obtain, but, according to experts, it is very unreliable when used. Participants in the investigation believe that the killer most likely immediately got rid of the barrel by throwing it into the Moscow River.

Taking into account the method of murder, the weapon, the characteristics of the ammunition and other circumstances, Kommersant's interlocutors from law enforcement agencies are inclined to believe that the crime was most likely committed by non-professionals, who may not even know who exactly their target was.

Let us note that detectives have already found many similarities between the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Boris Nemtsov. In any case, they say, it is already obvious that Mr. Nemtsov, like Ms. Politkovskaya, was killed on certain dates: the opposition march scheduled for March 1, and the birthday of Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 7, 2006, respectively.

In addition, participants in the investigation note that Mr. Nemtsov, just like Ms. Politkovskaya at one time, was followed for a long time until they found themselves in places suitable for attack. In the case of politician Nemtsov, it is possible that the customer’s condition was precisely a murder committed with a view of the Kremlin.

True, the investigation classified the crime differently. If the murder of Mrs. Politkovskaya, according to the investigation, was the murder of a person in connection with the performance of his official activities, organized for hire (clause "b", clause "g" and clause "z" part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) , then in the case that is now being investigated by the main investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in connection with the shooting on the Moskvoretsky Bridge, there was no official or public activity at all, but the investigation immediately recognized its ordered nature. President Vladimir Putin spoke in the same sense, noting that “this brutal murder has all the signs of a contract killing and is exclusively provocative in nature.”

Ukrainian trace

According to Kommersant, the operational services are actively discussing a version linking the murder of Boris Nemtsov with the so-called Ukrainian trace. “The version related to internal Ukrainian events is really being verified,” Mr. Markin noted, since, according to him, “among both conflicting parties there are very radical characters who do not obey any authorities.”

According to this version, the oppositionist Nemtsov, who actively supports the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, could, for example, be dealt with by former militia members who returned from eastern Ukraine to Russia. The incident that occurred in October last year in the Moscow region, when drunken militias shot a traffic police crew, just indicates that some of them, in principle, do not care who they shoot at. On the other hand, the former head of government of the self-proclaimed DPR, Alexander Borodai, told Kommersant that he considers this version “nonsense and stupidity.” According to him, “there was no point in the patriots killing Mr. Nemtsov, who was a political figure in the 90s, and not now.”

The leader of the nationalist association “Russians” adheres to the same version. Dmitry Demushkin, who declared that nationalists were not involved in the death of Mr. Nemtsov. Let us note that Mr. Nemtsov, unlike other well-known politicians, lawyers and journalists, was not on the famous “hit lists” of the militant organization of Russian nationalists (BORN), the trial of which is now being completed in the Moscow Regional Court. However, Alexey Pershin, a lawyer for BORN member Nikita Tikhonov, sentenced to life, told Kommersant that Mr. Nemtsov, as a political figure, was simply not interesting to nationalists. On the other hand, he did not rule out that radical followers of BORN could still have something to do with what happened, since some of them are now fighting in the Donbass and perceive Mr. Nemtsov in a completely different way - as a person who openly supported their enemies.

["RBC Newspaper", 03/02/2015, "Main version": The version of the involvement of nationalists is becoming a priority in the investigation into the murder of Boris Nemtsov, RBC sources in law enforcement assure. Senior Investigator for Particularly Important Cases under the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, Major General of Justice Igor Krasnov, was appointed head of the investigation team. Currently, 12 investigators work under his leadership. They are studying recordings from CCTV cameras, mobile phone billings, travel routes and Nemtsov’s contacts over the past month.
Investigator Krasnov is known for investigating high-profile cases involving nationalists. In 2005, he prosecuted the case against nationalist Ivan Mironov, who was accused of assassination attempt on the head of RAO UES Anatoly Chubais together with retired GRU colonel Vladimir Kvachkov. […]
The Investigative Committee could neither confirm nor deny RBC's information about the transfer of the case to investigator Krasnov, but confirmed that the case had been transferred to the central office of the department. Initially, the investigation team was headed by acting. Alexander Drymanov, head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Moscow. Previously, he was known for investigating criminal cases of war crimes in the south-east of Ukraine and South Ossetia, as well as case of illegal telephone wiretapping against FSKN General Alexander Bulbov.
The investigator’s version of the involvement of nationalists in Nemtsov’s murder is also supported by lawyer, former investigator of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Vladimir Zherebenkov, who represented the interests of the relatives of the victims Markelov and Baburova. According to him, the murder of an opposition political figure for the purpose of destabilization coincides with the program text “Strategy 2020” distributed by BORN members among radical nationalists. - Insert K.ru]

If we follow the version of provocation, then, according to the operational services, it is impossible to exclude the involvement of other nationalists in the murder in the center of Moscow - militants from the Right Sector banned in Russia and volunteer detachments acting on the side of the Ukrainian authorities. [...]

Islamic trace

In connection with these threats that the politician received on social networks, as Mr. Nemtsov’s lawyer Vadim Prokhorov said, they contacted law enforcement agencies, but, according to him, there was no reaction to this. A reverse reaction could well have followed the rally in Grozny, where more than 800 thousand opponents of cartoons of the prophet gathered at the end of January, especially since the organizer of the event was the President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has been criticized more than once by Mr. Nemtsov.

It should be recalled that so-called gas and traumatic weapons were actively used in the Russian Federation both by radical Islamists and, for example, by those who took revenge for publications criticizing North Caucasian leaders. Let us recall that Anna Politkovskaya was killed with such a weapon, and members of the GTA gang liquidated last fall, who recruited militants for the Islamic State, committed a whole series of murders on the roads near Moscow using converted guns for training purposes.

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, in turn, said that the murder of Mr. Nemtsov was organized by “Western intelligence services seeking to cause an internal conflict in Russia by any means.” According to Mr. Kadyrov, opposition leader Nemtsov “did not like everything that was being done for the revival and development of Chechnya.” “I took this very calmly and was not even interested in his statements. Listening to him, I remembered Salman Raduev, who took upon himself everything that was happening in the world and commented on everything,” the Chechen leader noted.

Anna Duritskaya's testimony was checked for 7.5 hours

Perhaps the loudest conflict between Mr. Nemtsov, who became a deputy of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma in 2013, occurred with the vice-governor of the region, Alexander Senin. Having contacted the prosecutor's office, the deputy claimed that the wife of the deputy governor heads Yartek Medical LLC, which, in turn, provides government services to the regional health department, supervised by Mr. Senin. Thanks to this, Mr. Nemtsov believed, the LLC received 150 government contracts. The prosecutor's office, however, established that within the framework of the contracts, the LLC supplied not the medicines that the deputy wrote about, but consumables for hospitals. The deputy governor did not take part in the procurement commission; therefore, the inspectors decided that there could be no conflict of interest here. As a result, prosecutors did not take any measures against the official. Nevertheless, Mr. Nemtsov managed to ensure that the deputies adopted a special appeal regarding suspicious contracts to the governor, by whose decision Mr. Senin was removed from office. When leaving, he promised to sue Mr. Nemtsov, but in the databases of Yaroslavl courts nothing is reported about the decision on this claim.

The investigation does not yet know anything about any business conflicts involving Mr. Nemtsov. There is, however, an old story about debt collection from the former head of Rosvooruzhenie, Major General Alexandra Kotelkina. Back in 2010, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow, having satisfied Mr. Nemtsov’s claim against the general, decided to recover $700 thousand in ruble equivalent from the latter, as well as interest on debt. A well-known politician and oppositionist once gave this money to the general for business development. Alexander Kotelkin promised to return them in a year, but did not keep his word. However, in the end, Boris Nemtsov assigned the right to claim the debt to third parties under an assignment agreement. And they, in turn, stopped enforcement proceedings for some reason.

As for possible everyday problems, Anna Duritskaya, with whose participation yesterday operational and investigative actions continued for more than 7.5 hours, can obviously know about them. In particular, the girl was taken to the scene of the crime so that she could show exactly how the killer acted. Just in case, the investigation took the girl under state protection, which, according to the defense, she refused, but nevertheless continues to be under the supervision of operatives who guard her apartment. Mrs. Duritskaya herself asks to quickly let her go to her parents in Kyiv.

[IA “Rosbalt”, 03/01/2015, “The mother of Nemtsov’s friend relayed her story about the murder”: Russian politician Boris Nemtsov was shot in the back, said the mother of his companion, model Anna Duritskaya Inna Mikhailovna after a conversation with her daughter.
“She was waiting for him in the restaurant, they had dinner and were getting ready to go home. On the street, Anya offered to call a taxi, but Boris refused and wanted to take a walk. When they walked (across the bridge), Anya held his hand and heard clapping. Boris went limp and fell. Anya was very scared, started calling the police and immediately called me...
She said on the phone: Mom, Boris was killed!.. He was shot in the back, he fell and is lying next to him,” Inna Duritskaya told the Interfax-Ukraine agency.
According to her, her daughter stayed in touch with her all night. “The next time she called and said that she was already in the car and giving her testimony. And the whole night, until 5 in the morning, they drove her to different areas where they took her testimony,” said the girl’s mother. - Insert K.ru]

Boris Nemtsov and Anna Duritskaya (right)

[LifeNews.Ru, 03/02/2015, “Investigators have restored Nemtsov’s route on the day of the murder”: Law enforcement officials investigating the murder of Boris Nemtsov managed not only to restore the route of the famous politician from GUM to the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, but also to draw in sufficient detail a picture of the last day of his life.
As a source told LifeNews, at about half past ten on the morning of February 27, Boris Nemtsov met his 23-year-old girlfriend Anna Duritskaya at Sheremetyevo Airport. From there they went in the politician’s Range Rover to his apartment in the center of the capital.
The couple left the house only at the beginning of eight in the evening: Nemtsov went to an interview, and Duritskaya went on foot to the spa on Pyatnitskaya Street. After everyone finished their business, the lovers met again - in GUM, in the Bosco cafe. After dinner, Boris and Anna left the car with the driver, and, despite the drizzling rain, they decided to walk to the apartment on Malaya Ordynka. - Insert K.ru]

The Investigative Committee announced yesterday that it is looking for new witnesses to the murder of Mr. Nemtsov, to whom the Ministry of Internal Affairs is even ready to pay 3 million rubles for especially valuable information.

[Slon.Ru, 03/02/2015, “The FSO disowned monitoring the scene of Nemtsov’s murder”: The cameras of the Federal Security Service did not record the moment of the murder of oppositionist Boris Nemtsov. Official representative of the department Sergei Devyatov told RIA Novosti about this.
“Video cameras are aimed at the Kremlin and provide an overview of the internal territory. The Moskvoretsky Bridge is not the area of ​​responsibility of the Federal Security Service. There are no FSO cameras there,” he added.
Devyatov noticed that on the night when the murder was committed, all FSO cameras were working as usual. Earlier, the Moscow mayor's office announced that there were no malfunctions in the city's video surveillance system. The metropolitan government added that cameras in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin are controlled by federal authorities, but did not specify whether city systems provide surveillance of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge, where Nemtsov was killed.
Photographer Dmitry Aleshkovsky noted on his Facebook that there are cameras on the Beklemishevskaya Tower of the Kremlin, one of which was aimed “exactly at the scene of the murder” on the night of the crime.
At the same time, in an interview with TASS, a representative of the Department of Information Technology said that the recordings of city cameras were transferred to investigators, without specifying how many of them recorded the crime. The cameras, he said, were in good working order and provided high-quality images. - Insert K.ru]

Who bullied and threatened

November 2007. In Krasnoyarsk, at a meeting with voters, a “nashi” poured liquid chocolate on Nemtsov, who at that time headed the SPS election list for the State Duma elections.

March 2009. At the entrance to the Sochi election headquarters, young people threw ammonia in the face of the mayoral candidate Nemtsov.

July 2012. Young activists of the Seliger forum presented the installation “You are not welcome here” - on 14 poles dug into the ground, they pasted images of the faces of oppositionists, among whom was Nemtsov.

September 2010. During the presentation of the report “Putin. Results. 10 years,” two girls and a young man tried to put fish nets on Nemtsov’s head.

November 2010. At Sheremetyevo airport, an unknown young man ran up to Nemtsov (who had returned from the USA, where he spoke at Congress) and threw a net over his head.

January 2011. At the exit from the cafe where Nemtsov was meeting with his children, three guys tried to throw a net over his head.

May 2011. According to the Seliger rules, to participate in the summer camp it was necessary to write an essay on the topic of Nemtsov being “under the direct leadership of the Washington regional committee.”

June 2011. Unknown attackers seriously damaged Nemtsov's car by throwing a toilet on it. According to the politician, the car was under surveillance. Nemtsov’s driver repeatedly found “beacons” attached to the bottom of the car.

July 2011. An installation depicting opposition leaders was presented at the Seliger camp. The goal of the promotion is to choose the “Loser of the Year.” Among the contenders for this title was Nemtsov (in the first work he was depicted against the background of the White House building, in the second - behind barbed wire).

August 2011. During the campaign against the governor of St. Petersburg, Valentina Matvienko, pro-Kremlin activists threw eggs and stones at Nemtsov and his associates.

September 2013. At a rally on the Volzhskaya embankment in Yaroslavl in support of ex-mayor Yevgeny Urlashov, unknown people threw eggs at Nemtsov.

May 2014. “Moscow Students” hung a poster with portraits of oppositionists (including Nemtsov) on the facade of the Book House store on Novy Arbat. The inscription on the poster read: “Fifth Column! Strangers are among us! They support the junta in Ukraine!”

January 2015. On one of the buildings on Novy Arbat, the art group Glavplakat hung a poster depicting the “fifth column” (including Nemtsov), who allegedly “insisted on sanctions against their country.” Next to the portraits were images of a character from the action movie “Alien” and a large inscription: “By supporting sanctions, they are achieving a fall in income and a rise in prices.”

February 2015. At the Anti-Maidan rally, participants carried a poster with a picture of Nemtsov and the caption “Organizer of the Maidan.”

Prepared by Diana Khachatryan

Real threat

Boris has been subjected to various types of attacks regularly since 2009, back in Sochi, where he took part in the mayoral elections: they threw various heavy objects at his car, threw eggs, threw mud and ammonia at him, threw stones at him, etc. and so on. There was a lot of all this. As for the threats specifically, the most serious one came against him in the summer-autumn of last year from one account on social networks. They threatened him for his position on Ukraine. They wrote something to him like: “I’ll kill you.” Then this account was quickly deleted. Usually Boris never abused attention to his person, did not react to attacks and in general, as you already understood, neglected security. But this time he really got tense, we took a screenshot of the account and wrote a statement about the threat received to the Moscow prosecutor’s office.

That is, at least the Moscow prosecutor's office was aware that he was threatened with murder?

Yes. But, unfortunately, she did not react. She shuffled and shuffled the application, passed it on somewhere and in the end for some reason sent it to the Yaroslavl region (where Nemtsov was a deputy. - V. Ch.). Where everything died down. For some reason they didn’t do any preventive measures - to find and identify those who threatened and make sure that they were no longer allowed to do anything - then for some reason they let everything go.

But in fairness, I will say: from my point of view, it is unlikely that real murderers will first threaten their victims on social networks. Professional killers don't shine. The search for those who committed the murder needs to be broader, which I hope the investigation will do. The question is that, in general, a situation has been created where widespread hysteria against the opposition turned into such a tragedy.

Vera Chelishcheva

Murder: versions

However, there are objective circumstances:

The killers left a direct witness alive and untouched.

The murder took place in a widely watched and wiretapped area, where all records of vehicle movements, etc., were probably preserved.

Judging by the available information, Nemtsov was in one of the cafes in GUM before the murder. No one could know when he would finish sitting there and where he would go then. This means that the tip either came from his wiretapping, or the car must have been grazing in the Ilyinka/Varvarka area, which again is a heavily monitored and bugged territory - this is the domain of the presidential administration and the FSO. Those. if these are some people outside the authorities, then now the authorities have in their hands a complete breakdown of the movements of these freaks in the Ilyinka/Varvarka area at the moment when Nemtsov was sitting in GUM and then leaving there. The killers - and judging by the precise shots that hit the heart, lung, head, etc., these were highly professional killers - could not help but understand this.

Those. it was obvious to the professionals that in this way they were exposed so much that they either deliberately acted so impudently (which is extremely difficult to believe) or were confident in their impunity.

But all these are “flowers” ​​in comparison with the main consideration, which outweighs all others:

Less than 48 hours before the largest opposition rally, over which the authorities were very tense, Nemtsov could very likely be under surveillance. There might not have been any surveillance, but the killers were so professional that they simply had to assume the prevailing probability of being targeted in this situation. Given any motive for the murder that did not come from the authorities, it would have been easier to postpone it to a later and calmer period.

Since no one was afraid of anything and acted brazenly, only one conclusion suggests itself.

I already wrote about the motive yesterday - to sow fear.

These are just facts. You can keep your speculative reasoning about what is “beneficial” or “disadvantageous” for someone.

It all started on the evening of February 27, 2015. It was an ordinary Friday for many, people were happy about the end of the work week, gathered in bars to drink and relax, and the Moscow opposition was actively preparing for the upcoming “Spring” march, which was planned for March 1.

My friends and I also met at about 7 pm to go bar hopping. When we met, one of my friends traditionally said: “You’re with a backpack again...”, and I replied: “Well, you know, I always carry all the equipment with me. Suddenly something happens! and rolled his eyes. We headed up Bolshaya Dmitrovka together, cheerfully remembering how a few years ago, after a similar get-together, I lost an entire backpack with photographic equipment in the subway in the morning. Our plans for the evening to relax were large-scale, because we had not seen each other for a long time, there was a lot to talk about for a long time. We went to one pub for an hour, drank beer there, then visited several more bars on Tverskaya.

The time was approaching 10 pm. We reached the popular establishment “Mayak”, which is near the TASS building. On the way, I started a conversation and correspondence with Stas Mudry, he was then the editor-in-chief of the good online publication Yod. We discussed with him issues of cooperation and problems that arose with the transfer of materials to other media, which I did specifically for Yoda. And the physical state of my friends and I was already quite relaxed and drunk; I didn’t want to discuss and argue with Stas at all, but the conflict had to be resolved. Moreover, I liked working with Yod, because the Wise was always aware of all events, always promptly reported on events, and this was very useful. We were drunk and happy, at some point I became too lazy to read Twitter and the news, so by midnight I no longer opened Twitter. There is already a feeling that you can relax, because the night has come, the weekend is next and nothing unusual will happen.

If you've been to Mayak on a Friday evening or night, you should know what the atmosphere is like there. Loud music, young people dancing, alcohol flowing from everywhere, rock and roll is playing, hipsters are having fun, girls are already in shape, the seats are all occupied, there is a crush. We joyfully walked up the long staircase, were examined by the always sad young guard and let us inside. By some miracle, only one table was free, which my friends and I immediately occupied. The correspondence with Stas the Mudry continued, I took out my laptop to type normally, one of my friends called the waiter, and the second decided not to wait and went to make his way to the bar.

I put the phone on the table, connected it to the laptop, opened the VKontakte tab to continue the correspondence, clicked on the TweetDeck icon and returned to the discussion with Stas. Suddenly the phone rings, “Stas the Wise” is written on the screen and the first thought was “Well, why the hell are you calling? And so we correspond!” It was very noisy in Mayak, I went to a friend, he almost made his way to the bar counter, it was almost impossible to answer the call, so I hung up on him. Exactly at the moment when I approached my friend to discuss drinking, I received an SMS from Stas with the text “Pick up the phone, they killed Nemtsov.”

You know, it’s difficult to describe the first feelings when I first read it. A state like in a movie, when the surrounding noise instantly becomes quiet and dull, and you immediately sober up and try to understand what to do. It wasn’t even shock, but the thought: “How in the world could this happen?” Silently, I pulled my friend back and showed him the message. It seems that he even opened his mouth in shock, and I rushed outside to call Stas. While I was running down the long slippery stairs, I opened Twitter to confirm the Wise One's information. The feed loaded, there were only tweets “WHAT A NIGHTMARE”, “I CAN’T BELIEVE”, “Nemtsov was killed...”, “Bori is no more” and the like.

He ran out into the street and quickly dialed Stas. The dialogue was short:
- Martin, I know you are in the center. Nemtsov was killed. Run sleep...
- Where exactly?
- On Vasilievsky Spusk somewhere, more precisely it is not clear.
- Clear. I ran.
He pulled open the door, flew up the stairs back to the Mayak, made his way through the crowd of drunken, cheerful people who, of course, didn’t know anything yet, and instantly collected the equipment in his backpack. I showed the message about Nemtsov’s murder again to my friends and with a gesture that I ran. They nodded understandingly. And I flew out of the bar like a bullet.

I don’t remember ever running anywhere at such speed. It was not cold outside, but in the evening there was a slight frost and the roads were covered with ice. While I was rushing to Manezhka down Bolshaya Nikitskaya, I even managed to smoke and scroll through Twitter. By half past midnight, it turned out that Nemtsov had been shot almost an hour ago, but for some reason the exact place was not indicated anywhere. Just media reports that “politician Boris Nemtsov was allegedly killed on Vasilyevsky Spusk.” I couldn’t find any circumstances or photographs anywhere, or I just didn’t read carefully while I was running.

My emotions were like this: everything is fine, everyone is happy, everything is calm and it’s fucked up!
To be honest, I had a vague idea of ​​what exactly Nemtsov was doing as a politician, but I clearly felt the scale of what happened. After all, there had been no such political murders in the history of new Russia until this moment. There was a feeling that now everything had changed and would be somehow different.

I ran non-stop all the way to Red Square. We were lucky that the Alexander Garden was not closed at night, and we managed to quickly pass through it to the Kremlin. I was just walking quickly along Red Square itself, because I was exhausted. There was time to look through Twitter again, there were no new details, no photos appeared, which I was actually surprised about.
So I approach the hill behind which Vasilievsky Descent begins, I start to get nervous, I light a cigarette. When I reach the descent, a view of the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge opens up, which already at that moment became informally the Nemtsov Bridge for a huge number of people. I see several police cars and an ambulance on the bridge; there are almost no people around.

My first thought: “Where are the journalists anyway?” Just understand correctly, I was not glad that I came running first, it was just a huge surprise. Naturally, I didn’t think at all about any such personal gain at that time. You just had to go and take a photo, so that objective information would reach people.

I walked along Vasilievsky in no hurry; my energy was spent on a two-kilometer run from the TASS building. And at some point, the working mode turned on, so to speak. Photojournalists and reporters should understand me perfectly well what this is. You just do the job, shoot, dryly assess the situation without much emotion. I almost calmly took out my camera and telephoto lens and walked to the cordon. Nemtsov’s body is about 50 meters away; it was not possible to get closer because the police fenced off the scene of the tragedy with tapes. I take several shots of different sizes. To film from the other side, I walked along the road past police cars.

It began to feel noticeably colder, there was a light fog in the air, and everything was quiet around. It started snowing a little. It’s already one o’clock in the morning, if I’m not mistaken, and the journalists are still not at the murder scene. I took a couple more shots and realized it was time to post photos. Doctors and police swarmed around the body, no one tried to drive me away, they didn’t pay attention at all. I took out my laptop, put it on a large road parapet, and sat down on the courts in some kind of puddle. I selected only 6-7 frames, quickly processed them and, first of all, of course, sent them to Stas the Mudry so that he would publish the news. In fact, it turns out that the first media outlet in which footage of the body of the murdered Nemtsov appeared was the online publication Yod.

I opened Twitter, an editorial tweet with photos had already appeared there, while I was converting the photos for my blog. He published a post with five photos and a short caption “Nemtsov was killed,” wrote a message on Twitter with a link to the post and clicked the “Send” button. The tweet disappeared into the feed, and for some reason the mobile connection at that moment jumped from fast LTE to slower 3G. I thought: “I’m so lucky...” and lit a cigarette, staring at the laptop. Usually, when the connection type changes, there is no Internet for several seconds, and that’s what happened. The Twitter feed wasn’t updated for a minute, I just looked at the screen and smoked. You know, I have never seen such a speed of retweets. Again, let me remind you that I am not bragging, but simply describing the emotions and thoughts that were then. TweetDeck stopped crashing and loaded the feed and retweet information. In the first 2-3 minutes after the tweet was published, it had 250-300 retweets, and in the next 10 minutes it reached 500-600 retweets.

At that moment, a crowd of journalists was actually walking across the bridge in one column from the Novokuznetskaya side, and the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge itself was blocked from Red Square. The photojournalists I knew looked at me in surprise, I just walked around, scrolled through Twitter and didn’t take anything. Let go.
About 5 minutes after the tweet was published, news agencies started calling me and asking for photographs, I answered everyone approvingly and asked them to send a message to the email address where to send the photographs. Then people asked me: “What? Did you raise money on Nemtsov?”, and then I didn’t think about money at all. I just did the job: I filmed it and sent it to everyone. Of course, the agencies then paid me for the photos at the standard rate, but that was not the goal, naturally.

Journalists began filming, sympathizers came running, and more police arrived. At what moment Ilya Yashin, Ksenia Sobchak and Kasyanov arrived, I won’t say for sure. I only remember the expression on Yashin’s face, how he silently walked with his mouth open and looked into emptiness. Sobchak was spinning around him, trying to say something. Kasyanov was always calling someone with a businesslike air; it was difficult to determine his emotions.

As the body was being loaded into the ambulance, I took a few more pictures and lowered the camera. The thought “That’s it. End...". I don’t know the end of what, probably the end of this day, which turned out to be so sudden and long. From the moment I received the SMS from Wise, it seemed like a whole day had passed. A lot of emotions at first, nerves later, and some anxious calm now. But the thought that something terrible had happened was firmly lodged in my head.

There was nothing else to do on the bridge. I slowly walked towards the embankment to catch a taxi and return to my friends at Mayak. They were obviously tired of waiting for me and wanted to know the details of what happened. He caught a taxi quickly, fell into the front seat, all wet, with a camera, and told him where to go. The driver had some kind of news channel on his tablet instead of a navigator, where there was a broadcast and footage from the scene of Nemtsov’s murder.
He asked somewhat hesitantly, realizing the stupidity of the question:
- You are from there now, right?
- Well, yes...
- And what's there?
- Look, they’re showing everything.
- What do you think?
- Nothing yet...
We drove further in silence, I looked through the frames on the camera, selecting which ones I would add to the post and send, although there was no point anymore, because all the correspondents had taken them and sent them to agencies. We got there quickly, I paid and tiredly got out of the car, my strength was gone.

That strange feeling when you have just experienced some kind of shock, and the people in the bar continue to have fun. I approach the door, drunk people are crowding around, fervently discussing something and joking. I climb the long slippery stairs and enter a noisy dancing bar, where nothing has changed, it would seem. The people continued to rest. This was some kind of second shock, because I myself experienced a wild event, but for people, in fact, nothing happened.
I made my way to my friends’ table, they had already had a lot of fun, and I was actually sober. He collapsed on a chair, threw his backpack next to him, and his friends looked at me questioningly.
- Yes, we have already looked at your post.
- Yeah. What do you think about everything?
- Well... fucked up, of course.
- Did people react at all here? Did you find out about the murder? Everyone has the same phone.
- Yes, at several tables at times people became more gloomy, reading and discussing something.
- Clear.
I took out my laptop, processed 3-4 more frames, added them to the post, answered a few calls from the media, sent photos to everyone, wrote the last tweet of the night and closed the laptop.

Then there was a new day, people carried flowers to the murder site.
But that is another story.