Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov ( ; 9 October 195927 February 2015) was a Russian scientist, statesman and liberal politician. He had a successful political career during the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin. Since 2000 had been an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He was shot and killed in February 2015 for his pro-democracy views on Russia, probably by loyalists of Vladimir Putin, on a bridge near the Kremlin and Red Square in Moscow.