Why was Boris Nemtsov murdered? The competing theories

Why was Boris Nemtsov murdered? The competing theories

He was a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin.

No, that's not his description. It's my theory.

Nemtsov recently said he feared Mr Putin would have him killed; he was gunned down a stone's throw away from the Kremlin; and I've kinda noticed that opponents of Vladimir Putin have approximately the same life expectancy as fruit flies. So you may not need to call Sherlock Holmes in on this one.

Of course, you don't need Sherlock since Putin plans to head up the investigation personally. (The picture below is from This Week With John Oliver, and it was added after I wrote my comments when I realized that Oliver had essentially expressed all of the the same ideas.)



For his part, Putin claimed, apparently without irony, that he "will do everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this vile and cynical crime are properly punished."

That punishment being, of course, a few million dollars in untraceable bills.

(Oliver also made this point, although his joke was slicker. He said that Putin had identified the murder as an obvious contract killing and had promised to hunt down the men who pulled off the contract hit - so he could pay what he owed them.)