Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said the fatal shooting of an exiled Russian artist known for his caricatures of Vladimir Putin was most likely a political assassination.
Speaking at a press conference on June 17, Tusk said all indications pointed to a targeted killing, though he cautioned that investigators still needed firmer evidence. He warned that, if the order had come from Moscow, Poland would be dealing with an act of state terrorism carrying an international dimension.
The artist, who worked under the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky and whose real name was Robert Kuzovkov, was shot dead on June 15 in Biała Podlaska, a town in eastern Poland close to the Belarusian border. He was 44.
A gunman approached him in a residential area and fired several rounds, then kept shooting as he lay on the ground. An autopsy recorded five entry wounds and two exit wounds to the head, chest and back.
Tusk confirmed that both the police and the domestic security service had offered Kuzovkov protection, which he declined for reasons that remain unclear. Two Belarusian citizens detained over the attack were later released for lack of evidence, the Polish news agency PAP reported.
Shortly before the shooting, the artist’s home address in Biała Podlaska had reportedly been published online, according to the independent Russian outlet iStories. His widow and children have since been placed under the protection of the security services.
Kuzovkov had lived in Poland since 2021, having left Russia over fears of political persecution. He built a following with biting satirical drawings that depicted Russian leaders as corrupt and authoritarian.
The artist had reported receiving threats in the weeks before he was killed, according to the Belarusian rights group Our House. One of his best-known works reworked an Orthodox icon, showing Stalin cradling a young Putin in place of the infant Jesus.
His targets ranged from Putin and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. In exile he adopted a deliberately contrarian stance, also mocking the Russian opposition and criticising Ukrainian political figures, which earned him hostility across rival camps.
In the days before his death, the artist had taken part in protests in Berlin marking Russia Day, staging performances outside the Russian embassy. Tusk said Polish authorities would do everything in their power to establish what had happened.
