Page 12 - RPTRusFeb17

2.7 Politics - misc
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny was given a new five-year suspended prison sentence on February 8 in a retrial of an embezzlement case, despite the charges being dropped against him last November. Unless overturned, the new sentence disqualifies Navalny from his campaign to be elected for the Russian presidency in 2018, when Vladimir Putin is expected to seek a fourth term.
Thousands of people marched in the Russian capital on February 26 to pay homage to opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, w ho was shot dead in central Moscow two years ago. Nemtsov, an ardent critic of President Vladimir Putin, was shot in the back as he walked with a female companion across a bridge near the Kremlin late on February 27, 2015. The interior minister estimated the number of participants at 5,000, while organisers provided a threefold higher figure. But the size of the march in either case showed a steep decline on the estimated 50,000 people who turned out to remember Nemtsov at a rally a few days after his death, and 24,000 took part in a similar march last year. Five Chechen men are currently on trial, charged with killing Nemtsov, but they have denied the charges, and Nemtsov's relatives have expressed concerns that the actual person or people behind the murder will never be found.
The state itself is the main impediment to Russia's competitiveness a nd
12 RUSSIA Country Report February 2017 www.intellinews.com