Another death of one of President Putin's political opponents looks suspicious even though a group of men have been arrested and one man has confessed his guilt.
Nemtsov became Deputy Prime Minister at the age of 38 and was thought to replace Yeltsin as president, but Putin got the job.
Nemtsov was a thorn in the side of the Kremlin - he disagreed with everything Putin did. He said Crimea should not have been annexed because it belonged to Ukraine and he had proof that Russian troops were fighting there, in fact he was writing a book about it. Add to that the mass demonstration he had planned for March 1, and he was becoming a real pest.
When journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in 2006, Putin said she was "extremely insignificant for political life in Russia" and after Nemtsov's murder, a spokesman for Putin said he presented "no political threat to the current leadership."
And we will never forget the case of Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned with polonium in London in 2006. Litvinenko swore on his death bed that Putin was responsible. It was payback for exposing the Russian Secret Service's violent activities in helping Putin's rise to power and how he accumulated illicit proceeds from his time in office and hid them overseas.
President Putin's past has muddied his reputation and questions his integrity and although a lengthy inquiry in under way, the Russian people may believe the outcome, but the rest of the world may not.
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