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Ex-finance minister gives Boris Nemtsov his due for his work in Russian government

Thanks to Nemtsov's activity in the Cabinet in 1997 the government paid overdue debts to the Russian pensioners in full, former finance minister Alexey Kudrin declared at a mourning ceremony in Moscow
Former Russian finance minister Alexey Kudrin TASS/Artiom Korotaev
Former Russian finance minister Alexey Kudrin
© TASS/Artiom Korotaev

MOSCOW, March 3. /TASS/. Former finance minister Alexey Kudrin, who was a prominent figure in the Russian Cabinet since 2000 until his resignation in 2011, declared at a mourning ceremony for Boris Nemtsov on Tuesday that thanks to Nemtsov's activity in the Cabinet in 1997 the government paid overdue debts to the Russian pensioners in full.

"We got acquainted in March 1997, when Nemtsov was appointed First Deputy prime minister, and the first problem we solved together was paying off overdue pensions. Nemtsov was also energy minister then, and he pressed Gazprom to raise $2 billion, which was no easy thing to do. All the overdue pensions were paid then, and there have been no overdue pensions since," Kudrin said, adding that Nemtsov's accomplishments were "underestimated."

"People often say that his political weight was insufficient, but it was insufficient for reasons of the restrictions which exist in this country," Kudrin said.

Co-Chairman of the RPR-Parnas party and deputy of the Yaroslavl regional Duma Boris Nemtsov was killed on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in downtown Moscow overnight to February 28. He was 55.