Russia vows to find opposition figure's killers

Russia vowed today to find the killers of outspoken opposition leader Boris Nemtsov as fresh details emerged about the most shocking political assassination during Vladimir Putin's rule.
The 55-year-old former deputy prime minister, a longtime Putin critic and renowned anti-corruption crusader, was shot dead shortly before midnight Friday while walking across a bridge just a short distance from the Kremlin.
Shocked opposition figures in Russia and Western leaders called for a full and transparent probe into the murder of Nemtsov, who served as Boris Yeltsin's first deputy prime minister in the 1990s.
Tomorrow, Nemtsov's body will lie in state at the Andrei Sakharov rights centre in Moscow, followed by his burial at the city's Troekurovskoye cemetery.

Yesterday, tens of thousands of people joined a memorial march in Moscow for Nemtsov, numbers not seen since the mass anti-Putin rallies of 2011 and 2012.
Putin himself vowed to spare no effort to bring the killers to justice, ordering law enforcement chiefs to personally take on the case.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pledged Monday that the "heinous crime" would be "fully investigated."
A reward of three million rubles (USD 48,000) is on offer for information on Nemtsov's death, a substantial amount in Moscow, where the average monthly salary is 60,000 rubles (USD 960).
Various motives for the murder have been floated, including Nemtsov's opposition to Russia's role in the Ukraine conflict, as well as his condemnation of January's killings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris by Islamist gunmen.

Investigators also suggested the killers wanted to destabilise Russia, which is facing its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War over Ukraine.