Pussy Riot's Tolokonnikova Says Nemtsov's Murder Signals 'New Stage' in Russian Politics

Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the murder of Boris Nemtsov, opposition leader and ardent critic of Vladimir Putin, signals a “new stage” in Russian politics. Speaking by Skype to RFE/RL’s Current Time Program, Tolokonnikova said that people can “plainly see Putin’s policies … in which people who are quite visible public figures are murdered just outside the Kremlin.”

Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president, was fatally shot on a bridge near the Kremlin on February 27. Credit: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty