Killed in Moscow Nemtsov, an opponent of Putin. White House worried

NEW YORK - A white car that goes fast. Seven shots along the Bolshoi Kamenny Most, a bridge just south of the Kremlin in the heart of Moscow.
It ended well, with an attack in cold blood on the evening of the Russian capital, the life of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. He was shot as he walked, a real execution.
The first details on the murder came from the Russian Interior Ministry. Opposition politicians have confirmed shortly after the death and the authorities that it had initiated investigations, interviewing possible witnesses. A spokesman for Putin said that the president condemned the "brutal murder" and cha has advocated directly to himself the responsibility for investigation assuming a contract killing or a "provocation" on the eve of opposition demonstrations in the capital.

Nemtsov - 55 years, born abroad and fluent in English - was vice premier under Boris Yeltsin in the late nineties and the first governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. Subsequently he was parliamentary Duma since 2003, released by the Chamber of Deputies, had founded several opposition parties and organizations, the last Republican Party of Russia - People's Party for Freedom. Had distinguished himself among the most active and public liberal critics of Putin participating in major events in 2011 and 2012, promoting economic reforms and attacking the corruption and waste during the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Tomorrow, Sunday, would have to take part in a significant rally portesta the outskirts of the capital against the economic difficulties and the role of Putin in the war in Ukraine. According to some of his colleagues, Nemtsov stave preparing its report on the presence of Russian troops in Ukraine.



The murder casts new shadows on Russian politics and relations between Putin, the United States Barack Obama and the European Union are in crisis, now primarily for the conflict in Ukraine, where support for anti-government rebels and pro-Russian Putin did take sanctions against Moscow. In the years of Putin's leadership, also, numerous critics uncomfortable Kremlin, journalists and civil rights workers were murdered under the eyes occidental often. The New York Times recalled the tragic list: Paul Khlebnikov of Forbes magazine, who was killed in 2004, Anna Politkovskaya, popular criticism of the war in Chechnya in 2006 up to Natalya Estemirova, a human rights activist, kidnapped and shot in the Caucasus 2009


The node Russian is one of the most serious challenges unresolved for the US administration and the new tragedy brings him even more to the fore: Obama promised in the early days of his presidency, then not being able to act on them, a "reset", a revival of relationships. Today relations are at the lowest point since the Cold War and Obama is under attack, by several members of the US Congress especially conservatives, for underestimating Putin and managed a failed strategy of foreign policy. The White House had no immediate official reaction in the night, but according to observers of American foreign policy is growing preoccupation