Russia stifles what’s left of opposition at Moscow memorial site

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. For years, mourners and members of Russia’s pro-democracy movement have flocked to a bridge near the Kremlin each February to remember Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician who was shot dead there in 2015. This week, at the 10th anniversary of the killing, a far smaller crowd turned out, with the leading lights of the opposition either dead or driven into exile.

Police officers rushed visitors along and at times blocked them from the bridge. City workers repeatedly tossed flowers set on the bridge into garbage bags, including some laid by Western ambassadors, according to attendees and reports from local media outlet RusNews. The scenes from this year’s memorial reflected the near elimination of the Russian opposition under President Vladimir Putin and the collapsing space for public debate in a country that has muzzled and jailed journalists, banned protest and stamped out any whisper of dissent.

The trend continues even as President Trump attempts to establish warm relations and revive economic ties with Russia. “The brutality is growing. On the anniversary of Nemtsov’s murder, people were usually allowed to gather.

The police did not interfere with the laying of flowers…a huge number of buckets with flowers piled up," said Arkady Konikov, a longtime pro-democracy activist who left Russia for Israel in 2023 out of opposition to the Ukraine war. Mourners held small ceremonies in several other Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, Ufa and Barnaul, where they were closely watched by police.