A Russian artist known for his satirical caricatures of President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders has been shot dead in a car park in eastern Poland, in what Polish authorities are treating as a targeted killing. Robert Kuzovkov, 44, who worked under the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot five times in the head, chest and back on Monday morning in Biała Podlaska, a small town of fewer than 60,000 people located roughly 40 kilometres from the Belarusian border and approximately 600 metres from the Belarusian consulate. He died at the scene. Two Belarusian nationals, aged 33 and 37, have been detained near the consulate, though prosecutors say their precise role in the killing is still being determined and no charges have yet been filed.

According to Marcin Kozak, spokesman for the district prosecutor's office in Lublin, an unidentified gunman fired two shots at Skrepetsky as he approached, then walked up to the fallen victim and discharged three more rounds before fleeing. Five shell casings and a 9mm Luger bullet were recovered from the scene. A post-mortem examination has been scheduled. A Belarusian Telegram channel reported that multiple perpetrators had been transported to the scene by a Belarusian taxi driver who subsequently fled to the consulate, though Polish authorities have not confirmed this account.

Skrepetsky had left Russia in 2021, fearing criminal prosecution, and was granted asylum in Biała Podlaska. His work — distributed via Telegram and YouTube — included caricatures depicting Putin alongside Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko portrayed as Adolf Hitler, and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov with his son rendered with pigs' snouts. Just days before his death, he had attended a protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin on Russia Day, dragging a Russian flag tied to his trousers along the road before discarding it in a bin. Following that demonstration, he was subjected to threats from what he described as