Russian Opposition Politician Boris Nemtsov Killed In Moscow

   (RFE/RL) --- Boris Nemtsov, a prominent Russian opposition politician and former deputy prime minister, Moscow on February 27.

has been shot dead in

   The Interfax news agency said Russia's Interior Ministry press center has confirmed that Nemtsov was killed on Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge in central
Moscow on the evening of February 27.

   "We confirm that a man has been killed in the center of Moscow, on whom documents in the name of Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov have been found,"
the Interior Ministry press center said.
   It said the man was killed by four shots in the back. The ministry said a special operation has been launched in Moscow to find the killers.

   Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, said investigators were questioning witnesses and examining the crime scene.

   Interfax said Anatoly Yakunin, the head of the Interior Ministry department for Moscow has rushed to the scene. Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev has been informed of the incident.
   Nemtsov’s fellow Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin confirmed on Twitter that Nemtsov was shot and is “dead.” Nemtsov was 55.

   Once considered a potential successor to Russia’s first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, Nemstov became an opposition politician and fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

   He rose to prominence as the governor of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and became a vice premier in the late 1990s, during the last years of Yeltsin’s presidency.

   Nemtsov left the Duma, Russia’s Parliament, in 2003, and founded and led several opposition parties and groups, the latest being the Republican Party of Russia -- People’s Freedom Party.