Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov shot dead in Moscow

PanARMENIAN.Net - A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say, according to BBC News.

An unidentified attacker in a car shot Nemtsov four times in the back as he crossed a bridge in view of the Kremlin, police say. He died hours after appealing for support for a march on Sunday in Moscow against the war in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the murder, the Kremlin says. President Putin has assumed "personal control" of the investigation into the killing, said his spokesman Dmitry Peskov. It "bears the hallmarks of a contract killing," said Peskov.

In a recent interview, Nemtsov had said he feared Putin would have him killed because of his opposition to the war in Ukraine.

Nemtsov, 55, served as first deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. He had earned a reputation as an economic reformer while governor of one of Russia's biggest cities, Nizhny Novgorod. Falling out of favour with Yeltsin's successor, Putin, he became an outspoken opposition politician.