Poland detains suspect with Georgian passport in killing of Russian exile cartoonist critical of Putin

The killing

Robert Kuzovkov, a 44-year-old Russian exile who drew under the name Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot dead on Monday morning in the city of Biala Podlaska, about 30 kilometres from the Belarusian border. He was hit by five bullets, including one to the head, at close range after falling from the first shot. Police initially detained two Belarusian nationals but released them for lack of evidence.

Suspect arrested

On Thursday, Polish police and the Internal Security Agency (ABW) arrested a man near Warsaw suspected of involvement in the murder. Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on social media that the detainee was a 36-year-old who was carrying a Georgian passport. Local media reported the operation involved anti-terror units raiding a workers' hostel in Piastow. Investigators believe the passport may be forged and the suspect could be a Chechen.

“The services are working to identify the person who ordered this murder.”

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski told Radio Zet that Chechens, whom the artist had heavily attacked, were also potentially suspected.

Artist's profile

Skrepetsky was known for provocative satirical cartoons mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny. He fled to Poland in 2021, saying he feared political persecution in Russia. In exile he continued his iconoclastic work, staging a protest at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate in early May and later throwing a Russian flag into a rubbish bin outside the Russian embassy in Berlin on 12 June. He had recently received threats, according to the investigative outlet The Insider, and had turned down a police protection offer.

Political fallout

Tusk said on Wednesday that all indications pointed to a "political assassination" and warned that if Russia had commissioned it, the act would amount to state terrorism.

“If it was commissioned by Russia, then it is also a very serious matter with an international dimension.”

The killing echoes a series of attacks on Kremlin critics abroad, including the 2019 murder of a Georgian man in Berlin's Kleiner Tiergarten by a Russian agent, and earlier poisonings of Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal in the United Kingdom. Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in such cases.