MOSCOW, December 14. /TASS/. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has commented on the question to clarify what Russian President Vladimir Putin meant when he recently said that it is "generally clear" who ordered the assassination of Russian politician Boris Nemtsov in 2015, suggesting that this question can be asked directly at Putin’s upcoming annual press conference on December 17.

"No, I cannot [clarify that]," he told reporters Monday. "The large press conference is coming, you are free to ask that."

Peskov recalled that the Russian leader had himself said that he knows who ordered the assassination at the recent meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. At the same time, the Kremlin representative added that he could not "expand on these words."

On December 10, Putin held a meeting of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. The Russian leader then noted that he thinks it is possible to investigate the Nemtsov murder further, even though everything is "generally clear" about this crime, as both murderers and people who ordered the assassination were found. "The Nemtsov murder: I recently spoke about it with my colleagues, we need to work more on it possibly," Putin said. "However, it is generally clear, both assassins and those who ordered it were found."

Boris Nemtsov, Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister and co-chairman of the PARNAS political party, was gunned down in downtown Moscow on February 27, 2015. In July 2017, the Moscow District Military Court handed down prison sentences to five perpetrators ranging from 11 to 20 years in a maximum-security penal colony.