Anatoly Chubais, a liberal politician and businessmen associated with President Boris Yeltsin’s reformers, spoke to RFE/RL and TV crews at the crime scene:
“Today in the country a demand for malice has been created. A demand for hatred has been created. A demand for aggression has been created. Several days ago, people were marching with banners saying they’re going to destroy the fifth column. Today Nemtsov is killed. Let’s just pause for a moment and think what’s going to happen tomorrow. We all need to stop. I emphasize: all of us. The authorities, the opposition, the liberals, the communists, the nationalists, the conservatives -- everyone needs to stop and just think for a moment.”
Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov blaming "Western intelligence services" and Ukrainian security services for Nemtsov's death:
"Only forces interested in increasing tensions could take such a bloody step. The organizers of this murder hoped that the whole world would accuse the leadership of the country of the death of Nemtsov and trigger a wave of protests. There is no doubt that the murder of Nemtsov was organized by the West's security services, which strive any way they can to provoke internal conflict in Russia."
Kadyrov says Russian authorities want to find Nemtsov's murderer and bring to justice those responsible:
"To this end, as evidenced by the message that all efforts [will be taken to punish the perpetrators]. First of all, Boris Nemtsov is a Russian citizen, and an attempt on the life of a Russian citizen should be severely punished. I extend my condolences to his mother, relatives, and friends of Boris Nemtsov."
Interesting that, again, echoing the Kremlin message, Nemtsov's mother is mentioned. He had children, too, but they keep mentioning his mother (who reportedly feared Putin's administration would kill her son).
More Western conspiracy claims.
Russian Communist Party lawmaker Valery Rashkin accuses the West of being behind the murder. "This is an act of war against the Russian elite, it is a demonstration with the message: 'We won't stop at anything.' This murder was organized by a transnational financial elite gang based in the United States and political embodied by the so-called 'inter-party group of Hillary Clinton.' The executors, most likely, were trained by the Ukrainian gestapo, the SBU [Ukrainian Security Services]."
In a retort to the avalanche of accusations being directed at the West, the Grani.Ru news portal (which is blocked in Russia) asks ironically on Twitter: "Has the 'fifth column' and USA already reaped the benefits of the murders of Politkovskaya, Estemirova, Starovoitova, Litvinenko, Listyev, Shchekochikin?"
The investigation into Nemtsov's murder is to be headed by General Aleksandr Drymanov, the head of the Moscow Investigative Committee. Drymanov is the man who led the investigation into charges against Nadia Savchenko, the Ukrainian pilot incarcerated in Moscow who has been on hunger strike since December to protest her treatment.
Drymanov also oversaw the second Yukos criminal case that saw Mikhail Khodorkovsky jailed for a second time, a case many saw as politically motivated.
Independent news outlet Meduza tweets:
"On Nemtsov
-20 hours have elapsed
-the killers haven’t been found
-the car of the killers hasn't been found
-six shells have been found
-they fired a Makarov [pistol]"
The pro-Kremlin LifeNews outlet, which has ties to Russia's security services, has published an interview with a purported eyewitness to the shooting. The interviewee, whom they call simply Viktor M, recounts how he witnessed a man flee the scene in a waiting car after the shooting. Viktor M says he ran to help Nemtsov, who was lying on the ground wounded but that he was wheezing and soon died.
LifeNews suggests there are "three key witnesses" to the killing.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko talked about Nemtsov's killing in televised comments during a visit to the city of Vinnytsia:
"Boris Nemtsov was killed. He was a great friend of Ukraine and a great patriot of Russia. He was a person who, like a bridge, connected Ukraine and Russia and who built those relations between Ukraine and Russia, which I would like to see."
"Boris [Nemtsov] declared that he would reveal persuasive evidence about the involvement of Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Someone was very afraid of this. Boris was not afraid. The hangmen and executioners were afraid. They killed him."
"On March 1, tomorrow, [Boris Nemtsov] was going to join the march, leading a demonstration of several thousand people to show that there is another Russia which loves Ukraine, which respects human rights, and for which freedom is not an empty word and where for the sake of freedom and democracy he was ready to give his life."
A BBC report on Nemtsov from 1997 portrays him as a possible successor to Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and captures how his political star was once on the rise: