Ambassadors of the European Union and several European countries visited the place of murder of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow today to pay tribute to the slain opposition leader, and to call on the Russian authorities to find and punish the crime organisers.
55-year-old Nemtsov, an opposition leader and former deputy prime minister, was gunned down near the Kremlin walls late in the evening of February 27, 2015, as he walked home with his girlfriend from a restaurant.
Investigators have charged a group of Chechen men with his murder. But Nemtsov's supporters say the suspects are just low-level operatives who were paid to kill the prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin. They say the person who ordered the hit has been neither identified nor arrested.
"Today, as well as a year ago, on February 28, we, ambassadors of the EU countries and the EU and Norway, some of us with spouses, came to pay tribute to Boris Nemtsov, because he was an outstanding, famous politician who contributed to our common cause - relations between the European Union and Russia.
"His brutal murder shocked all of us, and of course today we all came together to pay tribute to him and at the same time to pay attention to the importance of prosecuting those who masterminded and executed this crime," said Vygaudas Usackas, European Union Ambassador to Russia, after laying flowers to an improvised memorial on the bridge near Kremlin that the authorities have repeatedly tried to destroy.
"I am here together with my colleagues, ambassadors from the EU countries and the EU ambassador, in order to pay tribute to Boris Nemtsov and express hope that those who committed this terrible crime will be found and punished. Of course, it is a great tragedy and we think it is very important to us, and even more to Russia to finally solve this crime," said Peter Ericson, Ambassador of Sweden to Russia.
It is the second time the ambassadors came to pay tribute to Nemtsov. Last year, on February 28th, the day after he was shot just meters away from the Kremlin, diplomats also laid flowers at the murder scene.