Nemtsov’s star gradually fell, and the hopes of a democratic Russia with it. First, he was swept from government as Gazprom, the monolithic citadel of the entrenched Soviet gas elite he fought while in Yeltsin’s government, became the driving force behind Putin’s new social contract, which dazzled ordinary people with petrodollars in exchange for a rollback on rights and reforms. Then, in 2003, he lost his seat in Parliament after Putin turned it into a compliant tool of the state; its own speaker later called it “no place for discussions.” Governor’s elections of the sort he battled through when running the industrial heartland Nizhny Novgorod went a year later.

Soon, Nemtsov was all but out of the game altogether, reduced to what Russians call “nonsystemic politics.” He set up multiple political parties that fell apart as their leaders bickered over the affections of an ever-dwindling electorate. He organized protests that never attracted more than a few thousand devotees. Blacklisted from TV, he published reports exposing corruption in Putin’s inner circle that, over time, were acknolwedged with a shrug even by what remained of the free Russian media. He even lost the increasingly dubious title of the fractured, sometimes hapless oppositions’ leading light to the younger, funnier, more charismatic lawyer Alexei Navalny…

Nemtsov’s allies were divided on whom to blame for the murder. Some pointed a finger at the Kremlin, since the crime took place literally just outside its walls, swarming with guards and security cameras. Others suspected the hand of rogue zealots like the Moscow-born former east Ukraine militia leader Igor Strelkov, who returned from Donetsk vowing to wage war against a “fifth column of national traitors” first identified by Putin.

But that speculation is pointless, because we’re never going to find out. Whoever pulled the trigger didn’t just kill Nemtsov: With him goes the last hope of a Russia where the truth will out and these things won’t happen anymore.