Chechnya's iron-fisted leader Ramzan Kadyrov has posted a video on the Internet showing Russian opposition politician Mikhail Kasyanov in the cross-hairs of a sniper scope.
"Whoever did not get it will get it now!" Kadyrov wrote in the video's description.
The video shows Kasyanov, the head of the opposition Parnas party, alongside Vladimir Kara-Murza, the party's deputy leader. Kara-Murza said he considers Kadyrov's Instagram post a "direct incitement to murder."
Kasyanov said he views the video as a murder threat and plans to appeal to Russian law enforcement agencies. He shared leadership of the opposition party with Boris Nemtsov, until Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin a year ago.
The suspects charged in Nemtsov's killing are Chechens, including the suspected triggerman, a former officer in Kadyrov's security forces. Kadyrov has denied involvement in the killing.
But at the time of the assassination, Kadyrov defended one of the Chechens who was arrested in the shooting. A day later, Putin gave Kadyrov an award.
The Kremlin said it does not monitor Kadyrov's Instagram postings, but would look into the video with Kasyanov in the sniper's crosshairs.
Kadyrov's private militia has been accused of widespread abuses, including torture and assassination.
Last month, Kadyrov caused an uproar of protests after he wrote a treatise against Putin's critics in the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia, calling them a "gang of jackals" who "dream of destroying our state."
Some material for this report came from AP and AFP.
