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Kremlin not interested in US legislators’ opinion on probe into Nemtsov’s murder

This is Russia’s domestic affair, the presidential spokesman noted
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov Mikhail Metze/TASS
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
© Mikhail Metze/TASS

MOSCOW, March 13. /TASS/. Moscow will not pay attention to the US House of Representatives resolution "calling for accountability and justice for the assassination of [Russian politician] Boris Nemtsov," Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, pointing out that the investigation of the case was Russia’s domestic affair.

"References made in documents adopted by third countries are of no importance," he said. "This is Russia’s domestic affair. We are not ready to take such references into account," Peskov added.

"As for the investigation, it is not the Kremlin’s point of view that is important but the opinion of investigative authorities, who continue their work," the Russian presidential spokesman noted.

On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution submitted in late February, on the fourth anniversary of Nemtsov’s murder. The document condemns Russian authorities, who, according to US legislators, covered up the assassination of Nemtsov, and calls on Moscow "to allow an impartial international investigation of the assassination of Boris Nemtsov and to cooperate with the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in their ongoing inquiries over this case." The House also called on the US administration "to designate individuals whom they determine to have been involved in the assassination of Boris Nemtsov as perpetrators, organizers, or masterminds, on the list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury, freezing their assets and making them ineligible to receive United States visas."

Boris Nemtsov, Russia’s former deputy prime minister under then-President Boris Yeltsin, co-chairman of the Parnas party and lawmaker from the Yaroslavl regional legislature, was gunned down in downtown Moscow on February 27, 2015. Five individuals were arrested on suspicion of murdering the politician: Zaur Dadayev, Anzor and Shadid Gubashev, Temirlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev. In July 2017, the convicted perpetrators received sentences ranging from 11 to 20 years in a maximum security penal colony.