Two Belarusians arrested in Poland over anti-Kremlin cartoonist’s murder

June 16, Pozirk. Two citizens of Belarus have been arrested in the Polish city of Biała Podlaska following the murder of Russian anti-Kremlin caricature artist Robert Kuzovkov, who worked under the alias Semyon Skrepetski, according to the Lublin district prosecutor’s office.

The 44-year-old man was shot dead near his house on Monday morning. An unidentified man approached him and fired two shots using a short-barreled firearm, the prosecutor’s office said. When the victim fell to the ground, the perpetrator came closer and fired three more shots before quickly leaving the scene, the report added. The man died at the scene with seven gunshot wounds on his body.

A police manhunt resulted in the prompt arrest of two citizens of Belarus, aged 37 and 33, near the Belarusian consulate in Biała Podlaska, a city near the Belarusian border. “Their role in the incident is being investigated,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Investigators have reportedly questioned the first witnesses and collected a large amount of evidence.

Skrepetski was a political cartoonist known for his biting caricatures of the regimes in Russia and Belarus, especially of Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov. Some of his drawings mocked the political system in Belarus, including its ruler Alaksandar Łukašenka.