Russian Dissident Artist Killed in Poland
Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was reportedly shot after protesting near the Russian Embassy in Berlin.
Russian political dissident and artist Robert Kuzovkov, better known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, has been killed in Poland, according to local prosecutors. He was 44 years old.
Reports say Kuzovkov was shot five times in the Eastern Polish town of Biala Podlaska on Monday, June 15. His artworks, including a painting apparently portraying Soviet leader Joseph Stalin holding a miniature Vladimir Putin, which he brought to a protest days before his death, challenged the Russian president's authoritarian grip on his home country.
Polish authorities reportedly detained but have not yet charged two men from Belarus, a close Russian ally, in connection with Kuzovkov's death. Biala Podlaska is about 20 miles from the Polish border with Belarus.
On his Facebook page, Kuzovkov shared artworks critical of the Russian government, including various oil paintings portraying the ruler in compromising positions. One small-scale sculpture posted on the platform depicts Putin on all fours with a pencil emerging from his behind. The artist's most recent posts on the Facebook account showed him wearing various anti-Putin shirts, including one displaying a drawing of his head in a noose.
Days before his death, Kuzovkov protested outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin on June 12, Russia's national day.
Human rights organizations have long raised concerns over the Russian government's persecution of artists whose work challenges its official political positioning. In one of its highest-profile crackdowns on artists spanning over a decade, the Russian government imprisoned members of the punk band Pussy Riot for staging an anti-Putin protest in a Moscow church in 2012. The government has subsequently labeled the group an extremist group and arrested its members in absentia.
Hyperallergic has contacted the Polish government for comment.
