A chilling execution-style killing has rocked eastern Poland, where a 44-year-old Russian artist and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin regime was gunned down in broad daylight just hundreds of meters from a Belarusian diplomatic mission. Local law enforcement officials have launched a wide-ranging investigation into the murder, which has sent shockwaves across European security circles given the victim’s high-profile public opposition to authoritarian leaders in Moscow and Minsk.
The victim, Robert Kuzovkov, who publicly worked under the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was killed on a Monday morning in a public car park in Biała Podlaska, a Polish city roughly 25 miles from the Belarusian border and just 600 meters from the local Belarusian consulate. According to official statements from Marcin Kozak, spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, an unidentified attacker approached Skrepetsky and opened fire, striking the artist twice before moving closer once he fell to the ground to fire three additional lethal shots.
“When the victim fell to the ground, the perpetrator approached, fired three more shots and then quickly fled the scene. Robert K died at the scene,” Kozak confirmed to reporters. Forensic teams responding to the attack recovered five 9mm shell casings and one Geco 9mm Luger bullet from the car park crime scene, and a formal autopsy to confirm cause of death and gather additional forensic evidence is scheduled for Wednesday.
Skrepetsky built a public reputation for his sharp satirical caricatures that targeted authoritarian leaders across the former Soviet bloc, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Kozak noted that the artist had been open about his condemnation of the Kremlin’s current political agenda, a stance that put him in the crosshairs of critics of the Russian government even before he relocated to Poland.
Public records show Skrepetsky moved to Biała Podlaska from Russia in 2021, as political crackdowns on anti-Kremlin critics intensified inside the country. Just days before his killing, the artist appeared at an anti-Kremlin protest marking Russia Day outside the Russian embassy in Berlin on June 12. Video footage posted to social media from the event shows Skrepetsky carrying a satirical painting caricaturing both Putin and former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, with a Russian flag tied to his trousers that dragged along the pavement as he marched.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Polish law enforcement detained two Belarusian men, aged 33 and 37, near the Belarusian consulate in Biała Podlaska. Investigators have not yet confirmed what connection the two men may have to the killing, and Kozak said their possible roles in the incident remain under active investigation. Police have not yet named or publicly identified the suspected gunman, who remains at large after fleeing the scene of the shooting.