The assassination of Mr Nemtsov, who had served in the government of Boris Yeltsin and even been groomed as his potential successor (see article), has shaken many members of the political elite. It breaks an unwritten pact, agreed after Stalin’s death, that conflicts at the top should be resolved by non-violent means. Those who are still close to the Kremlin and consider themselves liberals now choose their words carefully. Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister who sponsors civic projects, told TV Rain, a liberal internet-based television channel, that this was a “dramatic page in Russia’s history…in modern, political Russia we see an opponent being stopped by a bullet. This is a new and inadmissible reality and it concerns all of us.” No government officials, including Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, spoke out.
