Putin opponent Nemtsov speaks his mind for last time

Below are extracts from Boris Nemtsov's last interview before he was shot dead in Moscow on Friday evening. Taken from today's Sunday Independent.

THE political demands [for our Moscow opposition march] are key: a quick end to the war with Ukraine. You know that Putin began aggression a year ago against Ukraine? Why do I say a year ago? Because on February 27 last year you know that armed men seized the parliament building of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Then 47 deputies without a quorum, under the gaze of automatic weapons, voted for the referendum...

Everything is known now. At first Putin lied, said there were no troops in Crimea. Then he said there were troops there.

Today I posted a video of the seizure of the building - just a video - of the Supreme Soviet of Crimea before deputies arrived and began the so-called free vote for the referendum.

The video shows how the special forces enter - there are GRU [Russian military intelligence] and so on. It's impossible to hide this...

We think that to create order in Russia and overcome the crisis, it is essential to have an important political transformation and in particular: it is essential to have honest elections with the participation, of course, of the opposition and the scrapping of censorship; and end this absolutely wretched, false propaganda that has simply upturned and consumed the brains of Russian people...

Crisis is a multi-faceted thing. The most important reason for the crisis is aggression, followed by sanctions, followed by isolation and Russia being deprived of modern technology... I want to stress that it's not just about money. Russia has been deprived of really important technology.

For example... Russia cannot develop shale oil and gas, although we have the biggest reserves of shale gas in the world - Russia is number one - precisely because Russia is forbidden to import technology. It's a big blow for the country. There's no investment, $150bn fled the country and that's all a consequence of this madness called 'aggression against Ukraine'. The reason for the crisis is, of course, war...

Of course we need political reform in the country. Of course, when power is concentrated in the hands of one person and this person is in charge forever - then everything will end in complete catastrophe, complete.