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Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead

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Russia opposition politician Boris Nemtsov shot dead

Mr Nemtsov was shot on a bridge within sight of St Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin.

A leading Russian opposition politician, former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, has been shot dead in Moscow, Russian officials say.

An unidentified attacker in a car shot Mr Nemtsov 7 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, BBC reports.

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 Mr Peskov.

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

Mr 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, Mr Putin, he became an outspoken opposition politician.

'Brutal murder'

Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary general of the Council of Europe, condemned the killing, saying in a tweet: "I am shocked and appalled key opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was shot. Killers must be brought to justice."

US President Barack Obama condemned the "brutal murder" and called on the Russian government to conduct a "prompt, impartial and transparent investigation".

Mr Nemtsov was shot at around 23:40 (20:40 GMT) on Friday while crossing Bolshoy Kamenny Bridge accompanied by a woman, Russia's interior ministry said.

He was shot with a pistol from a white car which fled the scene, a police source told Russia's Interfax news agency.

According to Russian-language news website Meduza, "several people" got out of a car and shot him.

One of the politician's colleagues in his RPR-Parnassus party, Ilya Yashin, confirmed Mr Nemtsov's death.

"Unfortunately I can see the corpse of Boris Nemtsov in front of me now," he was quoted as saying by Russia's lenta.ru news website.

Flowers were left at the site of the shooting through the night.

A lawyer for Mr Nemtsov reported that he had received death threats over social media in recent months; but for now there's only speculation as to why he was targeted. He openly opposed Moscow's role in the crisis in Ukraine - and the annexation by Russia of Crimea.

He had been planning a rare public protest on Sunday against both things - and a growing economic crisis in this country.

Since his death, social media has been flooded with tributes to a man remembered as by friends as decent, honest and a democrat . He had been pushed to the political margins in Vladimir Putin's Russia, but he was still prominent enough for someone to want to kill him.

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