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A Russian artist who had long criticised President Vladimir Putin was shot dead in eastern Poland, prosecutors said on Tuesday, adding that two Belarusian nationals had been detained in connection with the investigation.
Robert Kuzovkov, a 44-year-old painter, cartoonist and performance artist who worked under the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, had recently joined protests against the Putin regime in Italy and Germany. He had lived in Poland since 2021 after leaving Russia to avoid arrest.
A spokesperson for the Lublin district prosecutor’s office told reporters that the victim was shot in the chest and head in the town of Biała Podlaska on Monday. The two detainees have not been charged and prosecutors said it was too early to determine a motive.
Prosecutors said Skrepetsky was shot five times in a parking area near his home in Biała Podlaska, about 40km from the Belarusian border. Three of the shots were fired at close range after he had fallen to the ground.
Skrepetsky was known for psychedelic paintings and satirical cartoons of Putin and other Russian officials, as well as of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
Skrepetsky had recently written on social media that he was also receiving threats from Chechen supporters of Kadyrov who had identified his home and IP addresses.
Last week, Skrepetsky travelled to Berlin to stage a protest outside the Russian embassy. To mark Russia’s national day, he displayed an icon-style painting depicting Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin holding an infant Putin.
Earlier this year, the artist travelled to Italy to join activists such as Russia’s punk band Pussy Riot for a demonstration against the controversial reopening of the Russian national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has arrested dozens of people on charges of arson and other sabotage attacks, as well as closed down Russian consulates whose officials have been accused by Warsaw of spying.
Two years ago, authorities in Warsaw and Kyiv said they had uncovered a plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Rzeszów-Jasionka airport in eastern Poland. The airport has become a key transit hub for supplying Ukraine.
Pina Picierno, vice-president of the European parliament, said the artist’s death was part of a “disturbing pattern of poisonings, killings and operations targeting the Kremlin’s opponents far beyond Russia’s borders”.
While she said that every case needs to be investigated individually by authorities, Pinciero said such killings were “a serious challenge to European security and democratic values” and that the EU needed to increase co-operation to ensure protection of political dissidents.
“Europe must remain a place where those fleeing repression can find safety and freedom,” she wrote on X, sharing pictures of the activist protesting in Venice. “To defend dissidents is to defend our democracy.”
