Actions will be held this Sunday, 24 February

Press Release, 18.02.2019

Representatives of the Yabloko party are members of the organising committees of the Boris Nemtsov March in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These actions paying tribute to the memory to the politician shot on the bridge opposite the Kremlin four years ago will be held this Sunday, 24 February.

In Moscow the march will take place from Strastnoi Boulevard along the Boulevard Ring to Academician Sakharov Prospect. Participants should gather at 13:00, the march starts at 14:00.

In St. Petersburg, the action will be held as a rally. The city administration refused to give their permission on the march in the city centre, proposing to hold a march on the outskirts of the city – in the Polyustrovsky Park. This decision caused outrage among the residents of St.Petersburg. Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, promised to sue the city administration for this decision, and Alexander Shishlov, Ombudsman for Human Rights in St.Petersburg, also intervened in the situation.

Due to public pressure, St.Petersburg authorities agreed to give a permission on a rally on Lenin Square near the Finland Railway Station, in the city centre. The rally will begin at 14:00.

Politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on the Big Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow, near the Kremlin, on 27 February, 2015. In Yabloko believes that the murder is connected with his anti-war stance – in the last year of his life Boris Nemtsov openly opposed the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“The political responsibility for this murder lies with the government as a whole and personally by President Putin – those who started, wages the war and conducts a propaganda campaign of hatred in its support.

“The political responsibility for the murder lies with the authorities in general and personally with President Putin – all those who started the war and has been conducting a propaganda campaign creating the atmosphere of hatred in support [of the war]. Moral and human responsibility lies with everyone who participates in this campaign,” ran the statement of the Yabloko Bureau adopted the day after the murder of Boris Nemtsov.