Skrepetsky's acquaintances are convinced that his murder was politically motivated.

Those close to the artist Robert Kuzovkov (Semyon Skrepetsky), who was murdered in Poland, are certain the murder was politically motivated. The prosecutor's office has voiced several unspecified theories. The artist harshly ridiculed not only the authorities of Russia, Belarus, and Chechnya, but also Ukraine and the Russian opposition in his paintings and publications.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on June 16, it was reported that Russian artist Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, who drew caricatures of Ramzan Kadyrov and Vladimir Putin, was shot dead by unknown assailants in the Polish city of Biała Podlaska. The death of artist Robert Kuzovkov has only increased interest in his work and given new resonance to the themes he addressed in his work, social media users noted, commenting on the murder of the author of the Kadyrov cartoons.

Two Belarusian citizens, aged 33 and 37, were detained in connection with the murder of Robert Kuzovkov near the country's consulate in Biała Podlaska, but security forces released them, tvn24.pl reports, citing the Lublin District Prosecutor's Office.

The office also reported that investigators are considering several versions of the murder, but cannot voice them.

The publication also quotes Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who said that "everything points to a political assassination," but they need to wait for "more concrete evidence."

"It looked like an execution. Several shots from close range and one finishing shot," an officer familiar with the circumstances of the case told ONet.pl.

"The Russian actively posted information on social media about his whereabouts. Unfortunately, he was an easy target," the source added.

The latest wave of threats came after an action held on Russia Day, during which the artist staged an action outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin, throwing the Russian flag into a trash bin and displaying an "icon" of Putin holding Stalin.

Threats constantly accompanied the artist's activities: ill-wishers wrote under every post, noted Belarusian performance artist Vlad Bokhan. He noted that due to his critical publications against the Ukrainian authorities, the artist's data ended up in the Myrotvorets database, where, in addition to a description of his activities, personal information, including his address and accounts, was published.

According to Bokhan, Skrepetsky's murder may be politically motivated. "Any political assassination is not only the elimination of a person, but also an act of intimidation. A signal to those engaged in such activities," he said.

"After this action in Berlin, someone gave the order to eliminate him," suggests another activist of the Belarusian diaspora in Biala Podlaska. According to him, the artist has repeatedly participated in pacifist actions. The speaker last saw the artist last week. He got the impression that he was "a little afraid," even though Biala Podlaska is a peaceful city. He reported that Kuzovkov has five children, and his wife is pregnant with their sixth.

The murdered emigrant's wife, Victoria Ivanitskaya, wrote a statement on her social media asking her husband's followers to send all the threats he had received. She plans to compile a "single, powerful data array" and hand it over to investigators to prove that the murder was a contract killing, according to "Ostorozhno Novosti." She also reported that she and her children are under the protection of Polish security forces.

As of 6:43 PM Moscow time, the "Sausage Makers of a Nasty Day" channel, where Ivanitskaya's message was published, no longer exists.

Polish authorities have announced that they previously offered the artist security, but he refused, according to Polish government spokesman Adam Szlapka. According to him, the artist "felt unsafe" and therefore declined the offer, TVP Info reports.

Skrepetsky criticized not only the Russian authorities but also their opponents.

In the Telegram channel "Semyon Skrepetsky's Art Gallery," which has over 13,000 subscribers, the artist published his works, most of which mock politicians from various countries.

Many posts are dedicated to the Russian opposition, in particular, Alexei Navalny's widow, Yulia. On March 10, for example, he published an image of the painting "Sellers of Relics." After Alexei Navalny's death, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and his entire team began selling Alexei Navalny's relics, the painting's description states.

Many paintings have been released depicting Alexei Navalny himself, including one "icon." "Saint Nebuterbrodii holds a sandwich with "sausage, which is not Crimea, in his left hand a Bible with Navalny's ideology," the artist writes.

He reacted sarcastically both to the activities of the Russian opposition itself and to Navalny's return to Russia. "Later, Navalny decided to become a martyr and went to the Gulag, where he organized resistance. Navalny created a secret revolutionary organization codenamed the "stool union." The revolutionaries continued to vote smart and furiously shine flashlights, thereby bringing closer the collapse of the <...> regime," the artist wrote on January 7, 2025.

He also spoke critically about the activities of the Ukrainian authorities in the context of the SVO in Ukraine. According to him, against the backdrop of Russia spending millions on propaganda, "Zelensky, like a street thug, begins to threaten the Orban, who will send militants to him. <...>And millions of jeering comments from Ukrainians in support of Volodka and with threats against Hungary. "Do you think the Hungarians don't see this?" he wrote, in particular, on March 8, 2026.

Many publications are dedicated to the actions of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko - the artist depicted Lukashenko as Hitler, mocked economic problems, in particular, the lack of potatoes in Belarus, and repeatedly released paintings about the persecution of the opposition in the country.

One of the paintings, "Triune Holy Russia," depicts a three-headed figure reminiscent of caricatures of Putin, Lukashenko, and Kadyrov, merged into one creature. They hold an accordion, an axe, and a hammer, running across the sky above crosses and a tower.

Vladimir Putin is one of the main characters in Skrepetsky's paintings. Like many other political figures, he depicts the president in a primitivistic manner with a bluish face, sparse teeth, accompanying him with topical political slogans.

Semyon Skrepetsky actively drew caricatures of political figures, including Ramzan Kadyrov, his son Adam, and Akhmat commander Apti Alaudinov. And shortly before his assassination, on June 14, he commented on the repeated awarding Adam Kadyrov the title Hero of Chechnya by publishing one of his paintings, in which the Kadyrovs, father and son, are depicted with pig snouts, ears, and hooves.

The Chechen authorities have been persecuting their critics abroad for many years

Critics of the Chechen authorities have long been persecuted, including abroad. For example, in early 2020, the body of Imran Aliyev, a Chechen native and blogger known as Mansur Stary, was found with stab wounds in a hotel in the French city of Lille. Aliyev was killed by a resident of the Gudermes district of Chechnya who works for a high-ranking Chechen official, Chechen blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov (listed as a foreign agent) later stated. According to him, The alleged killer stayed with Imran Aliyev in Belgium for a week, after which he traveled to Lille with him. At the hotel, the man "put Imran to sleep by drugging him, then killed him."

In July 2020, bloggers from the Chechen diaspora who had criticized the Kadyrov regime reported receiving regular threats. They reported this after the murder of Chechen native Mamikhan Umarov, known as "Anzor from Vienna," in Austria.

In September 2020, a video of a naked Chechen native, Salman Tepsurkayev, sitting on a bottle, causing widespread controversy, explaining that he was doing so as punishment for collaborating with a Telegram channel critical of the Chechen authorities.

Tepsurkayev himself stated that he had insulted Chechen security forces in his publications. "I said that other people's mothers..., other people's daughters..., other people's wives.... I said some very inappropriate things there. I cursed all the Chechen police officers and government officials," a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent previously translated Tepsurkaev's words. Tepsurkaev's relatives believe that after his abduction in Gelendzhik, he was taken to the security forces' headquarters in Grozny. Tepsurkaev was killed back in September 2020 and buried in an unmarked grave, as his relatives were told to "bury him like a dog," an opposition Chechen Telegram channel reported on August 24, 2022.

The "Caucasian Knot" has compiled stories of the elimination of Ramzan Kadyrov's opponents in the EU in the fact sheet "Murders of Kadyrov's Critics in the EU".

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