IV 
114TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 227 
Condemning the murder of Boris Nemtsov, offering condolences to his family, 
friends, and colleagues, expressing solidarity with the people of Russia, 
and calling for an international investigation into this crime. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 29, 2015 
Mr. ENGEL (for himself and Mr. SMITH of New Jersey) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Condemning the murder of Boris Nemtsov, offering condo-
lences to his family, friends, and colleagues, expressing 
solidarity with the people of Russia, and calling for an 
international investigation into this crime. 
Whereas, on February 27, 2015, Boris Nemtsov was shot 
multiple times by unknown assailants while walking 
across the Great Moskvoretsky Bridge in the shadow of 
Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral and in full view of the 
Kremlin’s walls and security cameras; 
Whereas following the demise of the Soviet Union, Boris 
Nemtsov led a distinguished political career which in-
cluded serving as Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod re-
gion, a legislator in both chambers of Russia’s Federal 
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Assembly, First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, and a 
prominent leader of Russia’s democratic opposition; 
Whereas since his accession to power in 1999, Vladimir Putin 
has systematically dismantled the democratic reforms of 
the 1990s, weakened governing institutions such as the 
Federal Assembly, established political control over inves-
tigatory and judicial organs, increasingly restricted inde-
pendent media, repressed civil society organizations, and 
consolidated a corrupt and authoritarian ruling regime; 
Whereas Boris Nemtsov was a fearless, vocal, and high-pro-
file critic of the increasing repression and corruption that 
has characterized Vladimir Putin’s rule; 
Whereas Vladimir Putin has publicly used the terms ‘‘Na-
tional Traitors’’ and ‘‘Fifth Column’’ to describe Boris 
Nemtsov and other critics and has referred to Russia’s 
human rights activists and civil society leaders as ‘‘jack-
als’’ and ‘‘Judases’’ controlled by foreign powers; 
Whereas Boris Nemtsov had produced authoritative reports 
on high-level official corruption, including in the natural 
resources sector and the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics 
and was reportedly planning to release a new report on 
the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine; 
Whereas, on March 23, 2009, while running for mayor in 
Sochi, Boris Nemtsov was attacked by unknown assail-
ants who threw ammonia in his face; 
Whereas in November 2010, Boris Nemtsov was attacked in 
Moscow’s international airport by members of a Kremlin- 
controlled youth group following his return from speaking 
at a commemoration in the United States Capitol of the 
death of Russian whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky at 
which he urged imposing targeted sanctions on high- 
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ranking Kremlin officials for their complicity in large- 
scale corruption and human rights violations; 
Whereas in January 2011, Boris Nemtsov was jailed for tak-
ing part in a peaceful anti-Kremlin protest; 
Whereas in 2011 and 2012, Boris Nemtsov helped lead na-
tional protests against Vladimir Putin’s regime that re-
sulted in the largest anti-government demonstrations 
since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; 
Whereas, on June 13, 2013, Boris Nemtsov testified before 
a public hearing of the Committee on Foreign Relations 
of the United States Senate calling the Sergei Magnitsky 
Rule of Law Accountability Act ‘‘the most pro-Russian 
law in the history of any foreign parliament . . . if the 
U.S. wants to show solidarity with the Russian people, 
the best way to do it is to implement the Magnitsky Act’’; 
Whereas Boris Nemtsov, even hours before his assassination, 
was planning a public protest against Putin’s regime for 
March 1, 2015; 
Whereas Putin has announced that he will personally take 
control of Russia’s official investigation into Nemtsov’s 
murder; 
Whereas the reaction of government-controlled media to 
Boris Nemtsov’s assassination has been to defame the 
victim and advance bizarre and offensive conspiracies, in-
cluding that the United States may have been behind the 
murder; 
Whereas Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has publicly 
stated that Boris Nemtsov’s assassination was an anti- 
Kremlin provocation thereby sending a clear signal to in-
vestigatory authorities; 
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Whereas the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor Gen-
eral’s Office stated that the investigation was pursuing 
several possible motives, including ‘‘a provocation to de-
stabilize the political situation in the country, where the 
figure of Nemtsov could have become a sort of sacrificial 
victim for those who stop at nothing to achieve their po-
litical goals’’, as well as an assassination by ‘‘radical per-
sonalities’’ from Ukraine or Islamic extremists, among 
other highly implausible scenarios; 
Whereas in June 2012, Alexander Bastrykin, the head of 
Russia’s Investigative Committee drove Sergei Sokolov, a 
Russian journalist for Novaya Gazeta, the independent 
outlet that employed Anna Politkovskya and three other 
murdered journalists to a forest near Moscow where he 
threatened to behead, dismember, and then ‘‘investigate’’ 
his own murder of Sergei Sokolov; 
Whereas Boris Nemtsov publically advocated imposing 
Magnitsky Act sanctions on Alexander Bastrykin for his 
complicity in the cover up of Sergei Magnitsky’s false ar-
rest, torture, and murder and for other violations of 
human rights; 
Whereas based on their past record, Russia’s authorities will 
not conduct an independent, credible, and public inves-
tigation into the circumstances leading to the murder of 
Boris Nemtsov; 
Whereas the United Nations has established guidelines for 
the establishment of Commissions of Inquiry to inves-
tigate extra-legal, arbitrary, and summary executions; 
Whereas Russia is a participating state of the Organization 
for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and is 
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bound by its commitments to democratic norms and fun-
damental freedoms; 
Whereas the Moscow Mechanism of OSCE provides the op-
tion of sending missions of experts to assist participating 
States in resolving particular questions or problems re-
lated to human rights in their investigations; 
Whereas OSCE’s 1991 Moscow Document declared that the 
‘‘commitments undertaken in the field of the human di-
mension . . . are matters of direct and legitimate con-
cern to all participating States and do not belong exclu-
sively to the internal affairs of the State concerned’’; and 
Whereas, on March 1, 2015, tens of thousands gathered in 
the streets of Moscow, in the largest public demonstra-
tion since those Nemtsov helped organize in 2011 and 
2012, in order to mourn his death, exercising their right 
of free speech and peaceful assembly that he promoted 
and defended, and to call for justice following his murder: 
Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns the brutal and cowardly murder 
of Boris Nemtsov and the climate of fear, hatred, 
and impunity that surrounds this and other political 
murders in Russia; 
(2) offers condolences to the family, friends, 
and colleagues of Boris Nemstov as they mourn his 
death; 
(3) expresses solidarity with the people of Rus-
sia who are struggling against great odds to build a 
freer, more just, and prosperous future; 
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