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[Subtitle: “I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U.S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests,” Browder writes.]The financier Bill Browder has emerged as an unlikely central player in the ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney Browder hired to investigate official corruption, died in Russian custody in 2009. Congress subsequently imposed sanctions on the officials it held responsible for his death, passing the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government retaliated, among other ways,...

“There is no political opposition in Russia. Parties like the Liberal Democratic Party and the Communist Party are, in effect, sub-departments of United Russia, the ruling party. There is only one power vertical and everyone in politics is in it: some as a back-up plan, just in case, some because they expect preferential treatment. I don’t call myself an opposition. I am just a person of common sense. No one appointed me to my post, I was chosen by the majority in competitive elections. That is why I have more scope to act than government-backed officials. But where I can’t...

Washington DC has renamed the street the Russian embassy sits on after a murdered Russian opposition politician. The city council voted to rename the street outside Russia's embassy complex after Boris Nemtsov, who was shot outside the Kremlin in 2015.

Chechnya’s macho leader Ramzan Kadyrov is the most loyal of Vladimir Putin’s regional heads, at least in theory. The central street of the captial, Grozny, is called Putin Avenue, and the lampposts lining it are adorned with the Russian tricolour. Putin’s portrait looks down from dozens of buildings across the city, and Kadyrov’s Instagram account, his main method of communication with the outside world, is full of protestations that he is a “foot soldier”, supremely loyal to Russia’s great leader. But recent events, especially the murder of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, have led to renewed debate over whether the Kremlin’s...

The signs that Russian president Vladimir Putin was toppled in a coup are multiplying. The U.K.’s Daily Mail reported that a key Putin ally believes that while Putin is likely alive that he has been detained by the security services after key Chechen – and Muslim-- allies were implicated in the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on February 27th. From the Daily Mail:“I think that Putin is neutralised at the moment, but of course, he is alive,” said [Geydar] Dzhemal, seen as a Kremlin loyalist. “He is under the control of the power-wielding agencies, who have, in my opinion,...

The investigation was defined with the main version of the murder Nemtsov Source of "Interfax" noted that in favor of this version show evidence gathered consequence, both direct and indirect. There is no doubt that the murder is a custom character. The investigation into the murder of co-chairman of the RPR-Parnassus Boris Nemtsov almost decided on a priority version, informs "Interfax" referring to a source familiar with the situation. Someone from abroad "ordered" policy to discredit and destabilize power. "To date, work out all the possible versions, but the investigation is inclined to consider the main - the murder aimed...

The main suspect in Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's killing has signs of torture on his body and was forced to confess to the shooting, a human rights activist said Wednesday. Zaur Dadaev was arrested in Ingushetia, a region in the North Caucasus, on Saturday and taken to Moscow, where he was formally charged along with another suspect, Anzor Gubashev. Russian state-controlled media reported earlier this week that Dadaev had confessed his guilt in a verbal statement, though the judge residing over his first hearing said that confession was not made in court. Andrei Babushkin, a member of Russia's Human...

Several EU politicians and Russia's opposition leader have been barred from attending the funeral of murdered Russian politician Boris Nemtsov. A Polish politician was denied a visa and a Latvian MEP turned back at a Moscow airport, while Alexei Navalny was denied permission to leave jail.

NICOSIA, Cyprus – Cyprus' president on Monday sharply rebuked the U.S. ambassador on the Mediterranean island for a tweet he claims linked his visit to Russia to the assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades concluded a four-day visit to Russia on Feb. 28, hours after Nemtsov was killed. U.S. Ambassador John Koenig asked on Twitter: "What do people in #Cyprus think about the week in Russia as seen from here? Anastasiades visit and statements, #Nemtsov assassination?"

Moscow, March 2, Interfax - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will open a high-level event on the subject of protecting Christians on the sidelines of the 28th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Russia is seriously concerned by conflicts in the Middle East which has been the center of monotheistic religions since time immemorial. Regrettably, during these conflicts Christians are not only being harassed and discriminated against, but they also become victims of actions which fall under the definition of the genocide," the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of Information and Press said. Christians in Iraq and...

Supporters of slaughtered Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov march in Moscow yesterday, Sunday 01 March 2015 (twitter) There is no need to discuss whether Vladimir Putin personally gave the order to kill Boris Nemtsov, or whether it was given by someone else in the Kremlin - either to make the boss happy or, conversely, to put yet another stain on his long-besmirched reputation. Or whether Nemtsov was shot by some "patriotic" right-wing ghoul, acting on his own. As deputy head of the Kremlin administration Vyacheslav Volodin declared last October, speaking at the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi: "Russia will endure only...

Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia with three things: money, propaganda and terror. When the Russian economy was booming and the oil price was over $100 a barrel, Putin ruled Russia almost entirely with money – throwing cash at the elites and at the people – with a small dose of propaganda and a tiny injection here and there of terror. Now the money is running out, the equation has shifted. Today, Russia is ruled mostly through propaganda and terror. Boris Nemtsov took not a step nor a breath that wasn't under the intense surveillance of the FSB. Just like all...

The Kremlin, it appears, had a plan from the start. Weeks before the bloodiest days in Kyiv, weeks before Viktor Yanukovych fell from power and fled to Russia, weeks before the Euromaidan revolution reached its climax, the Kremlin had a blueprint for war. And a blueprint for annexing not just Crimea but large swaths of eastern Ukraine, as well. Some of the plan was realized; some of it not. But what does it tell us about the Kremlin's thinking and where the conflict may go from here? On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, we discuss the Kremlin strategy document on...

Lithuania said Saturday it had signed a trade agreement to buy liquified natural gas from the United States in a move aimed at reducing the EU Baltic state’s heavy dependence on Russian gas deliveries. Under the deal with Houston-based Chenier Energy company, the first LNG fuel is expected to arrive in Lithuania as early as next year, state-owned company Litgas said in a statement.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced on February 24 that Britain would send military personnel to Ukraine soon to help train its army. RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak spoke to Judy Dempsey, senior associate at Carnegie Europe and editor-in-chief of the blog Strategic Europe about the significance of the move. RFE/RL: British Prime Minister David Cameron announced this week that his country will send 75 military personnel to Ukraine. Do you think this might be a game changer in the Ukraine conflict? Judy Dempsey: No. They are sending them for training, for civilian-military relations, for sorting how the military on some levels...

The body of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, covered with plastic, lies on Moskvoretsky Bridge near St. Basil Cathedral in central Moscow early on February 28. When reporters asked former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov who was behind the assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, he dismissed the question as irrelevant. Whoever did the dirty work, he implied, would have done so only with President Vladimir Putin's blessing. "Who gave the order to kill Nemtsov? Who knows,” Kasparov said. ”But this was done not far from the Kremlin and it would have been done by Putin's...

On Friday evening, Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition leader and former first deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, went on a prominent Moscow radio station to exhort his fellow citizens to come out to protest President Vladimir Putin’s policies. There would be a rally on Sunday, a spring march, to demonstrate against the deepening economic crisis and Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. The most prominent Russian opposition leader, Aleksei Navalny, had been put in jail for 15 days, which just happened to be long enough to keep him from attending the rally. Nemtsov, who was older and, by now, less influential,...

While Vladimir Putin remains firmly entrenched in power in the Kremlin, opposition forces marched in the tens of thousands in the streets of Moscow according to journalists. The marchers chanted demanding an end to Putin’s power in Russia after the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Nemtsov was gun down on the streets of Moscow.The suspicion is that Nemtsov, who was planning a rally in Moscow against Putin and the prosecution of the Ukraine war, was killed to silence and inconvenient critic.“Tens of thousands of Russians marched through central Moscow on Sunday, carrying banners declaring ‘I am not afraid’ and...

The murder of Boris Nemtsov in broad daylight just outside the Kremlin confirms the worst fears about Russia under President Vladimir Putin. For a man like him, wealth and power leave no room for scruples. He is probably the world’s richest man, and he is ruthlessly extending the territory of Russia. Nemtsov publicized the country’s endemic corruption, and accused Putin of aggression against Ukraine. A fortnight ago, he was predicting that Putin would have him murdered. That’s the logic of systems of this kind. Putin’s message to Nemtsov’s aged mother reads in full, “Please accept my deepest condolences in connection...

Action in memory of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow. LIVE In Moscow, March 1 goes rally in memory of Boris Nemtsov, who was killed last night in the Greater Moscow River bridge, Column Proceeds from the Slavic area. Completed a march at the murder scene Policy. http://tvrain.ru/articles/aktsija_pamjati_borisa_nemtsova_v_moskve_live-383168/