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Memorial rally in Moscow for slain Russian opposition leader

They pointed the finger at a climate of hatred whipped up by the Kremlin.

“The political responsibility for this murder lies with the authorities and personally President Putin — those who started and are fighting a war and are running a propaganda campaign of hatred in its support,” former Yabloko liberal party leader Grigory Yavlinsky wrote on Facebook.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny questioned how Nemtsov could have been killed, saying he would have been under surveillance ahead of Sunday’s planned rally.

“I can’t believe that yesterday night he could have strolled towards the Kremlin without being watched,” he wrote on his blog.

It emerged Saturday that Nemtsov had expressed fears for his life over his opposition to Putin in the weeks before his murder, telling Russian weekly Sobesednik that his mother frequently warned him he would suffer deadly consequences for speaking out.

“There are many who say it has all the hallmarks of a political assassination,” Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in comments broadcast Sunday, describing the killing as a “tragedy for democracy”.

US President Barack Obama condemned the killing as a “brutal” and “vicious murder” and urged an investigation, while British Prime Minister David Cameron said the “callous murder” must be investigated “fully, rapidly and transparently”.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the killing, with his spokesman saying he “expects the perpetrators to be brought to justice swiftly”.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Nemtsov a “bridge between Ukraine and Russia”. “The murderers’ shot has destroyed it. I think it is not by accident,” he said.

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– ‘Provocation’ –

However, Putin suggested the crime was aimed at smearing the Russian authorities. It “had all the hallmarks of a contract killing and is entirely provocative in nature,” he was quoted as saying by the Kremlin.

The last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev claimed the killing was aimed at “destabilising the situation” in Russia.

The Investigative Committee probing the murder suggested the crime could be linked to the Charlie Hebdo massacre — noting that Nemtsov had received threats after he condemned the killings in Paris — or alternatively to the “situation inside Ukraine.”

Nemtsov was a former physicist who rose to prominence as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region in central Russia before serving in Yeltsin’s team.

After leaving parliament in 2003, he led several opposition parties and groups.

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