Who killed Boris Nemtsov? We don’t know. Some say we never will. They might have apprehended some suspects, but that is not the end of people’s suspicions.
While there is little likelihood of a definitive answer, that hasn’t stopped Western observers from speculating: Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov, rogue Russian security forces, Novorossiya separatists, Russian nationalists, or a combination of these. All are certainly plausible. Your preference, however, says a lot about how you understand Russia.
If you think all roads lead to Putin, you probably believe Putin has a tight grip on things – his orders flow smoothly down the power vertical. As such, Russia is a highly centralised state, and Putin’s subordinates rarely step out of line, and certainly never go rogue. However, if you think Putin’s Russia is a patchwork of elite factions where lines of authority are fragmented if not broken, then the possibility that autonomous forces took out Nemtsov is more conceivable. Nemtsov’s murder, therefore, is bigger than the killing of one man. The murder and the theories of who carried it out reflect the very nature of Putinism itself.
