Former Russian "young reformer" and current opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was shot dead Friday night as he walked across the Bolshoy Zamoskvoretsky Bridge, adjacent to Red Square in Moscow. Vladimir Markin, spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee, said that Nemtsov was hit numerous times by shots fired by a gunman or gunmen who escaped by car, and he died at the scene before emergency medical services arrived. Markin also stated that "the investigation is looking at several versions" as to who was responsible.

Western press headlines immediately declared Russian President Vladimir Putin's responsibility for the assassination. Presidential spokesman Dmitri Peskov said:

"Vladimir Putin noted that this cruel murder has all the signs of being a contract killing, and is absolutely provocational in nature."

Lyndon LaRouche stated today:

"The idea that he [nemtsov] was assassinated by Putin, in Putin's interest, is crazy... Who would have the motive, to have shot this guy, in Russia? Victoria Nuland,"

LaRouche added that the question must be asked whether or not Nuland

"was part of the team that organized the assassination of this guy. It sounds like Nuland. To me, it smells like Nuland... She's on the list of the suspected criminals, for this case, as for other cases."

Nuland, who is Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, is widely recognized as the architect of the 2014 coup d'etat in Ukraine, as well as the sponsor of the neo-nazi organizations which led that coup. Just this past week, Nuland was meeting in Washington with Andriy Parubiy, who led the fascist militias during the Euromaidan coup, and is now the deputy speaker of the Ukraine Supreme Rada. Nuland and Parubiy are promoting the policy of the U.S. sending lethal weapons to the Kiev government, which would throw oil on the fire in the region and likely unleash a broader conflict with Russia.

As LaRouche and his associates have thoroughly documented, Nuland, Obama and their British sponsors are hell-bent on bringing a "Maidan revolution" to Russia as well, orchestrating regime change to topple the Putin government, and have even activated a policy of threatened tactical nuclear warfare against Russia — and China — to force them to submit to the crumbling trans-Atlantic financial empire. That submission will not happen, however, as the Russian leadership has repeatedly made clear.

More broadly, Obama and the British are frantic to stop the emerging alternative to their bankrupt trans-Atlantic financial system, which is taking shape around the newly established "new paradigm" of global development established by the BRICS nations, under the leadership of China and Russia. That BRICS process now includes nations such as Argentina, Egypt, and increasingly Greece. Obama and his City of London and Wall Street sponsors have repeatedly deployed murders and terrorist acts to target these nations, along with open military and financial warfare aimed at regime change.

For example, in Argentina, where President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a leading collaborator of the BRICS, is being threatened with regime change orchestrated by the New York and London vulture funds, federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman was "suicided" on Jan. 18, the day before he was to announce the release of a dossier supposedly proving Cristina's guilt in covering up for Iran in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Cristina was immediately blamed as the architect of Nisman's death, in much of the international media. But on Feb. 26, the judge overseeing the bombing case, after reviewing Nisman's so-called "evidence," threw the case out and declared that "there is not a single element of evidence, not even circumstantial, which implicates the current head of State."

In BRICS-member Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff is also the target of a major destabilization and financial warfare, revolving around charges of corruption of the state oil company Petrobras. A national mobilization in defense of Brazil and in opposition to that operation has been launched, with leaders such as former Science and Technology Minister Roberto Amaral denouncing that "the coup is already underway."

Another recent case of unfounded charges being leveled against Putin and the Russian government, was the case of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Obama and London immediately blamed Putin, with no evidence whatsoever. In fact, the U.S. has refused to release satellite or AWAC surveillance videos of the incident, or other relevant evidence. This was used to browbeat a reluctant Europe into joining in sanctions and related financial warfare against Russia, and to escalate the military confrontation.

Now, the timely murder of Nemtsov indicates that Obama and the British are moving to massively escalate the confrontation with Russia up to the threshold of thermonuclear war.