WARSAW: A Russian artist known for his satirising President Vladimir Putin has been shot dead in eastern Poland, officials said on Tuesday.

“An investigation is being conducted… into the murder of a 44-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation… known in the media as Semyon Skrepetsky,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in Lublin, Marcin Kozak, told journalists. Two Belarusian nationals have been arrested in connection with the killing, he added.

They were detained in the vicinity of the Belarusian consulate in Biala Podlaska in eastern Poland, where the killing took place. But according to Lublin police spokesman, Deputy Inspector Andrzej Fijolek, the hunt for the suspected perpetrator of the crime is ongoing.

“We are still looking for the man who committed this crime,” he said, specifying that a special investigative team had been set up. According to Polish officials, Skrepetsky — whose real name is Robert Kuzovkov — was shot three times on Monday morning by an unidentified gunman armed with a handgun.

When the artist fell to the ground, he was approached by the assailant, who fired two more shots at close range. “The case is obviously serious,” Polish government spokesman Adam Szlapka told the press on Tuesday, adding that Poland had offered the artist protection, which he declined.

After the killing, the Polish press reported on Tuesday that Skrepetsky’s family had been moved to a safe location. As it stands, “no charges have been brought” against the two detained Belarusians, Kozak said, adding that “they remain at the disposal of the prosector’s office and the police”.

The case risks rekindling tensions between Poland and its neighbour Russia, which were exacerbated by drone crashes on Polish territory last autumn, which Warsaw blames on Moscow. “If the political nature of this crime is confirmed, we will be faced with a new manifestation of the escalation of actions carried out by Russia beyond its borders,” head of the Poland’s National Security Bureau (BBN) Bartosz Grodecki wrote on X.

“Poland cannot become a space for such actions.” Skrepetsky was known for his sometimes provocative caricatures, which targeted prominent Russian political figures — ranging from Putin and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to opposition figure Alexei Navalny and Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2026