[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3408-3409]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING BORIS NEMTSOV

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, last week Senator Graham and I introduced 
a Senate resolution condemning the murder of my friend and a true 
Russian Patriot, Boris Nemtsov. The resolution calls upon the Russian 
Federation to support an independent investigation into Boris Nemtsov's 
murder and take immediate steps to end its suppression of free speech 
and justice. It also urges President Obama to continue to sanction 
human rights violators in the Russian Federation and to increase U.S. 
support to like-minded human rights activists in Russia.
  My friends, I was devastated to learn of Boris's murder in Moscow 
last month. My thoughts and prayers remain with his family and many 
friends in Russia and around the world. With his death, the struggle 
for free speech and human rights in Russia has suffered another 
shattering blow.
  When the Soviet Union collapsed, Boris Nemtsov was one of Russia's 
earliest and most vigorous economic and political reformers, a champion 
of liberalization and democracy. His leadership of Russia's laboratory 
of reform eventually brought him to Moscow, where he served as Deputy 
Prime Minister and was once a favorite for the Russian Presidency.
  But then Russia took a dark turn when Vladimir Putin entered the 
Kremlin. Boris was one of the first to warn of the coming Putin 
dictatorship, even when many of his fellow liberals could not see it. 
As Putin's grip on power tightened, Boris's hopes for a free, just, and 
economically vibrant Russia, at home and at peace in Europe, were 
dashed. Yet, even after multiple arrests and countless threats on his 
life, Boris never stopped fighting the corruption and lawlessness of 
the Putin regime, never stopped seeking to advance democracy, human 
rights, free speech, free market reforms, and the rule of law.
  In December 2011 Boris Nemtsov helped mobilize the largest anti-
Kremlin demonstrations since the early 1990s, leading tens of thousands 
of Russians to march in protest of widespread fraud and corruption in 
the parliamentary elections. He stood up to harsh laws that vastly 
expanded the definition of ``treason,'' increased government control 
over the media, and limited the scope and activities of opposition 
parties and civil society organizations--laws that Vladimir Putin and 
his cronies have exploited to intimidate the Russian people into 
obedience.
  Shortly before his death, Boris Nemtsov was reportedly planning to 
release a report on Russia's military involvement in Ukraine. At the 
protest march scheduled 2 days after his murder, he was set to demand 
``the immediate end to the war and any aggressive actions towards 
Ukraine.'' He investigated and saw through the fabricated 
rationalizations of Putin's war. Putin didn't invade Ukraine to protect 
Russian-speaking peoples or to establish a federal state. Putin didn't 
invade Ukraine because he is crazy or merely to reassert Russia's 
sphere of influence in the near abroad. Rather, Boris Nemtsov wrote 
that the goal of Putin's ``fratricidal war'' is the ``preservation of 
personal power and money at any cost,'' a ``cold strategy for lifelong 
despotism.'' Putin was willing to doom Russia to isolation and 
sanctions and to sink his country ``into lies, violence, obscurantism, 
and imperial hysteria'' for his own personal power and enrichment. As 
Boris Nemtsov knew, this is not Russia's war; this is not Ukraine's 
war; this is Vladimir Putin's war.
  That is why Boris Nemtsov's murder is not just a tragedy for the 
people of Russia but for the people of Ukraine. He was one of the few 
brave Russians who sought to pierce the veneer of Putin's cynical and 
false narrative that Russia was not at war in Ukraine. There are many 
who now believe that Boris is yet another casualty of that war. At the 
memorial march honoring his life in Moscow on Sunday, one woman held a 
sign that read ``The war killed Nemtsov.''
  I had long been concerned about Boris's safety and said so publicly. 
I will never forget the last meeting we had in my office. I begged him 
to be

[[Page 3409]]

careful, and Boris told me he would never give up the fight for 
freedom, human rights, and rule of law for his fellow Russians, even if 
it cost him his life. I am heartbroken that it has come to that.
  That Boris Nemtsov's murder occurred on a bridge in a shadow of the 
Kremlin in one of the most secure parts of the Russian capital raises 
serious questions about the circumstances of his killing and who was 
responsible. In KGB fashion, Vladimir Putin will round up all the usual 
suspects, but I fear we will never know who really pulled the trigger 
that night. Putin's farcical oversight of the investigation ensures 
that it will be a sham.
  We don't need any investigation to know who was responsible for 
Boris's murder. Vladimir Putin may not have ordered Boris's 
assassination, but perhaps what is most frightening about Putin's 
Russia is that he didn't need to. Boris is dead because of the culture 
of impunity that Vladimir Putin has created in Russia, where 
individuals are routinely persecuted and attacked for their beliefs, 
including by the Russian Government, and no one is ever held 
responsible.
  Sadly, Boris Nemtsov was not the first and certainly will not be the 
last victim of Putin's repression. The culture of impunity has steadily 
worsened, deepened by the increased surveillance and harassment of 
members of opposition and civil society groups, the ongoing detention 
of numerous political prisoners, and by the continued violent attacks 
on brave journalists who dare to publish the truth about official 
corruption and other state crimes in Russia.
  According to one news report, at least 23 journalists have been 
murdered in Russia for reporting on government criminality and abuse 
since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, along with several anti-
Kremlin political activists. In only two of these cases have there been 
convictions.
  Igor Domnikov, a reporter who was writing about government 
corruption, was severely beaten in Moscow. He died 2 months later.
  Sergei Yushenkov, a leader of a Russian opposition party, was shot 
and killed at the entrance of his apartment building. At the time, he 
was serving on a commission investigating the Kremlin's potential role 
in the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia.
  Another member of that commission, a reporter who was investigating 
corruption in Russian law enforcement, was poisoned to death.
  American journalist Paul Klebnikov was investigating Russian 
Government connections to organized crime when he was shot to death in 
Moscow.
  Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and human rights activist, was a 
fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's brutal war in Chechyna. She was 
murdered in the stairwell of her apartment building on Vladimir Putin's 
birthday in 2006. The lawyer who represented her family later survived 
a poisoning attempt.
  Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko exposed the Putin regime's 
massive corruption, ties to organized crime, and involvement in 
assassination and murder. He was poisoned in 2006 with a radioactive 
isotope in a brazen act of nuclear terrorism.
  Ivan Safronov was investigating a secret sale of Russian missiles and 
fighter jets to Syria and Iran. He was pushed to his death from the 
window of his Moscow apartment.
  Sergei Magnitsky blew the whistle on tax fraud and large-scale theft 
by Russian Government officials. He was thrown into one of Russia's 
harshest prisons without trial, beaten and tortured, denied medical 
care, and died in excruciating pain. Even after his death, the Russian 
courts convicted him of tax evasion in a show trial.
  As Orwell once wrote, ``In a time of universal deceit--telling the 
truth is a revolutionary act.''
  Russia has fewer and fewer revolutionaries, but Boris Nemtsov was 
certainly one of them. Boris told the truth and was willing to lay down 
his life for it. He told the truth about Putin's reign of terror and 
hatred. He told the truth about Putin's kleptocracy, rampant 
corruption, and systematic theft perpetrated against the Russian 
people. He told the truth about Putin's illegal invasion of the 
sovereign Nation of Ukraine and Russia's continued support for 
violence, instability, and terror.
  Boris told the truth, and we must honor his memory by speaking these 
same truths fearlessly. Our Nation and free people everywhere must draw 
strength from Boris's example and continue to resist Vladimir Putin's 
dark and dangerous view of the world.
  Last Sunday, over 50,000 Russians marched in tribute to Boris 
Nemtsov, still seeking, despite the odds, what a Russian poet once 
called the footprints of the forgotten truth. At a funeral on Tuesday, 
thousands more waited in line in the cold for more than 1 hour to pay 
Boris their respects.
  Finally, as the hearse carrying Boris Nemtsov pulled away, mourners 
tossed flowers and chanted: ``Russia will be free!''
  As I remember my friend Boris Nemtsov, that is my most sincere hope 
and fervent prayer.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________