Moscow’s city hall rejects application to hold Nemtsov memorial march beside Kremlin

Moscow authorities have agreed to hold a memorial march for assassinated oppositionist leader Boris Nemtsov on February 25, but will offer their own proposal as to the route the march will take, stated the head of Moscow’s regional security department Vladimir Chernikov.

According to a Facebook post of one of the march’s organizers Mikhail Shneider, the municipality will likely propose that the march be transferred to from the embankment near the Kremlin to Moscow’s Boulevard Ring, as was done in 2016.

In their request to hold the march of up to 30,000 participants, the organizers asked that the route be similar to that of the first march held in 2015, which went from Slavyanskaya Square to the location of Nemtsov’s murder on the Great Moscow River bridge.

Boris Nemtsov was one of the most prominent Russian politicians of the 1990s and 2000s. After serving as governor of the Nizhniy Novgorod region from 1991-1997, he was at one time vetted as President Boris Yeltsin’s potential successor. Nemtsov was also a long-time leader of the liberal Soyus Pravykh Sil (Union of Right Forces).

In the 2000s, Nemtsov became an opposition leader and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He authored several works on corruption in Russia and the enrichment of Putin’s inner circle.

On February 27, 2015, Nemtsov was shot and killed within several yards of the Kremlin.

The trial of the alleged killers began in October 2016. Investigators believe the direct perpetrator of the crime to be Zaur Dadaev, a former fighter in the Chechen battalion Sever.