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Officials Approve Memorial to Murdered Russian Politician Boris Nemtsov

Dmitri Lovetsky / AP

Officials in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod have approved a memorial plaque to murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

Nemtsov, who worked as deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin, was head of the Nizhny Novgorod region between 1991 and 1997.

A plaque will be mounted on the house where Nemtsov lived when he served as governor, Russian television channel Dozhd reported.

Activists submitted a petition with 30,000 signatures to Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin in September 2016, asking for a small plaque to be erected on the bridge near Red Square where Nemstov was killed.

An unofficial source in the mayor's office told the Interfax news agency that the Moscow authorities believed “it would not be possible” to install the memorial.

Boris Nemtsov was fatally shot in the back in a drive-by shooting while walking across Moscow's Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge on Feb. 27, 2015.

Five men are currently charged with carrying out his murder: Zaur Dadaev, brothers Anzor and Shagid Gubashev, Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, and Khamzat Bakhaev. A sixth suspect, Beslan Shavanov, killed himself during a confrontation with police.

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