Nurse Zamira Duguzheva, 31, launched a scathing attack on her love rival, model Anna Duritskaya, 23, who was walking hand-in-hand with the opposition leader when he was gunned down.

She spoke out on a news website with close links to the Russian secret services and government, claiming that Nemtsov never loved Duritskaya. 

The attack came as investigators said that they had not ruled out Nemtsov's private life as a cause of his murder, but claimed the most likely scenario was that he was killed by Ukrainian secret services in a plot involving a former English public schoolboy. 

Nemtsov's friends believe this is a smokescreen to deflect attention from the possibility that Vladimir Putin's arch-foe was killed by Russian agents on Kremlin orders.

The politician's mother Dina, 87, and four children laid him to rest in Moscow with ex-UK prime minister Sir John Major leading Western mourners attending his funeral. 

Thousands of Russians also paid their final respects to the 55-year-old campaigner for a democratic Russia. Putin sent a wreath, but did not attend.

But Duguzheva, a surgical nurse who also worked as a model, claimed that Nemtsov had been dating her after they met at an opposition rally in Moscow two years ago.

Of the Ukrainian Duritskaya, who he nicknamed 'Bounty', she said: 'He didn't love her. He called me "Caucasus Cat".

'He told me: "Don't worry, I don't have anything serious with her",' according to a report on Life News website.

(dailymail.co.uk)