EU condemns Russia over entry bans for Putin critic mourners

European Parliament president Martin Schulz called it a “high affront” which will further set back relations with Moscow.

Mr Schulz said he will intervene with Russian authorities “in the strongest terms and demand an official explanation”.

Latvia holds the rotating EU presidency. The European Commission, Latvia and Poland also joined the protest.

Mr Schulz said the Russian moves “are being applied without the slightest element of reasoning or any forewarning”.

In the wake of the fighting in eastern Ukraine and Moscow’s annexation last year of the Crimean Peninsula, the EU has imposed visa bans on 151 individuals, including several Russians.

Thousands of mourners and dignitaries have filed past the white-lined coffin of Mr Nemtsov, many offering flowers as they paid their last respects to one of the most prominent figures of Russia’s beleaguered opposition.

So many came that when the viewing ended after its scheduled four hours, a line of people hundreds of metres long still waited outside the Sakharov Centre, named after the Soviet-era dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov.

Mr Nemtsov was shot dead late on Friday while walking on a bridge near the Kremlin in Moscow with a companion. No suspects have been arrested.

The killing has deeply shaken Russia’s small and marginalised opposition movement. Many opposition supporters suspect the killing was ordered by the Kremlin in retaliation for Mr Nemtsov’s ardent criticism of President Vladimir Putin. Authorities have suggested several possible motives, including a provocation aimed at tarnishing Mr Putin’s image.

Those who filed by ranged from committed opposition activists to ordinary citizens young and old. “He was our ray of light. With his help, I think Russia would have risen up and become a strong country. It is the dream of all progressive people in Russia,” said 80-year-old Valentina Gorbatova.

“I am here to show that aside from the 80 per cent of Russians who don’t watch anything but state television and don’t think for themselves, there are... us, who do think and see that the government system is unfair and that we need to change a lot in our country,” said Marsel Shamsudinov, who had come from the city of Kazan, 700 kilometres (450 miles) to the east to pay his respects.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, is serving a short jail term for unauthorised leaflet distribution and was not allowed to attend.

Mr Nemtsov, 55, had been a deputy prime minister under former president Boris Yeltsin and was widely seen as a rising young reformer. However, in the Putin era Mr Nemtsov’s party lost its seats in parliament.

Although his influence in mainstream politics vanished, Mr Nemtsov remained visible as one of Mr Putin’s most vehement critics. In a radio interview a few hours before his death, he denounced Mr Putin for his “mad, aggressive” policies in the Ukraine crisis.

After the viewing, his body was buried at a cemetery on Moscow’s western edge, as relatives and about 100 bystanders looked on.