MOSCOW — Russians turned out by the tens of thousands on Sunday to mourn an opposition leader who was murdered only a few steps from the Kremlin, amid fears that his death was the beginning of a new wave of violence.
Crowds waving Russia’s tricolor flag and carrying signs that said “Propaganda Kills” filed through Moscow’s heart, making a pilgrimage to the spot where Boris Nemtsov was gunned down under the Kremlin’s towers.
The killing was the highest-profile political assassination in Russia during the 15-year rule of President Vladimir Putin.
Although the numbers appeared to rival some of the largest protests during a wave of opposition rallies three years ago, few retained their old hopes for change.
Instead, many said they felt more vulnerable than ever after a year in which intimidating and fervent support for Putin after the annexation of Crimea carried an implicit threat against those who disagree.
Those who braved Sunday’s gloomy weather said that the Friday night slaying was a frightening sign that people who disagree with Russia’s aggressive mainstream risk their lives for saying so publicly. Many said they were now cautious about what they shared with their colleagues or published on social media.
“They really want to instigate fear. And they have been partially successful at doing that,” said Vladimir Milov, a politician who had worked withNemtsov in recent weeks to organize an opposition rally that transformed into memorial after the murder late Friday night.
Milov said that many Kremlin critics were now thinking about leaving Russia, convinced that killers would soon come for them, too.
“We will need to revisit the whole strategy after what happened,” he said.
Milov said that he and other leaders vowed to stay, but whether they will be as effective without their slain partner was a separate question. He said that Nemtsov was often the key person who knit together their sometimes fractious parts into a workable alliance.
“It will be much harder to manage this coalition situation without him,” he said.
Moscow police said that 21,000 people had come to the rally, though their numbers are reliably low. Organizers and local media said the figures were closer to 50,000, similar to opposition rallies in 2011 and 2012 that shook the Kremlin.
The crowds — young and old, nationalist and pacifist — clogged major arteries in central Moscow to commemorate a 55-year-old physicist-turned-politician who once looked as though he had a shot at the presidency.
Many people at the march said the murder was a turning point, and not for the better.
“The overall environment of terror is coming from the television and from people on the streets,” said Vladimir Melnik, 32, who works in finance. “People are starting to hate each other.”
