Polish police arrested the suspected murderer of an exiled Russian cartoonist, known for his drawings mocking Vladimir Putin, and killed Monday in the east of the country, Polish officials announced, citing possible participation by Russian special services.
“Today, in the early hours of the morning, the police arrested a person suspected of the murder,” Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski told the press.
According to the minister, the man, aged 36, arrested near Warsaw, was using a Georgian passport.
He is linked, according to the minister, “to large-scale organized crime” and he may have committed offenses in Poland in 2022.
The 44-year-old Russian cartoonist Robert Kouzovkov, known under the artist name Semion Skrepetski, was killed Monday morning in the street in Biala Podlaska (East) by a man who fired three shots from a handgun.
When the artist fell, the assailant approached him and shot twice at point blank range.
Immediately after the assassination, two Belarusian nationals were arrested by the police before being subsequently released.
According to the coordinating minister of Polish special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, the participation in this assassination of the Russian special services is "a hypothesis which is very strongly imposed" but "it must be supported by evidence".
He also indicated that the Polish authorities "on several occasions" offered to place the Russian cartoonist under protection.
“Unfortunately, and tragically for him, he did not take advantage of this proposal,” he added.
On Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that everything indicated that it was "a political assassination".
"If it was sponsored by Russia, then it is also a very serious subject with an international dimension," he added.
Semion Skrepetski became known for his sometimes provocative caricatures, targeting leading Russian political figures. His drawings could target President Vladimir Putin, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, opponent Alexei Navalny or even Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
The artist moved to Poland in 2021, saying he feared political persecution in Russia.
In exile, he maintained his iconoclastic posture, participating in Russian opposition events, while openly criticizing this same opposition.
The cartoonist has also strongly criticized the Ukrainian government on several occasions on social networks. Following these criticisms, Myrotvorets, a controversial Ukrainian site, published his home address.
Several opponents of Russian power have been victims of physical or poison attacks abroad, such as in the United Kingdom, where the former FSB agent Alexandre Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning in 2006.
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