Organizers of this year's march honoring Boris Nemtsov notify Moscow officials about February 29 event

Activists organizing this year’s march to honor former First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated on February 27, 2015, say they’ve notified the Moscow Mayor's Office that they plan to hold their event this year on Saturday, February 29. According to opposition politician Ilya Yashin, organizers expect as many as 30,000 people to attend the march, which would start at Strastnoy Boulevard and end at Sakharov Avenue. 

Earlier this month, a few dozen journalists, oppositionists, scholars, and human rights activists signed an open letter to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin stating that this year’s Nemtsov march will be both commemorative and “political in nature,” with demonstrators addressing the government’s planned constitutional reforms.

Boris Nemtsov was murdered on February 27, 2015, while crossing the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow. Five ethnic Chechens were convicted of carrying out the murder, but the authorities never identified the persons responsible for initiating the killing. All the defendants maintained their innocence, and some ultimately recanted earlier confessions, saying they were pressured during interrogations.