Police officers inspect the scene of a shooting in Biala Podlaska, eastern Poland, Monday. A Russian artist and cartoonist Semyon Skrepetsky known for mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin was shot dead in Biala Podlaska. Police Thursday said they arrested a man on suspicion of the murder. Photo by Wojtek Jargilo/EPA
Police in Poland arrested a suspect in the murder of Russian artist Robert Kuzovkov, 44, publicly known as Semyon Skrepetsky, who was shot and killed Monday.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced the arrest of a 36-year-old man with a Georgian passport. They haven’t released the man’s name.
Kuzovkov died in Biała Podlaska, which is about 25 miles from the border with Belarus. He had been a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov.
On Wednesday, Tusk said “everything indicates that this was a political assassination,” but he said Polish authorities were still compiling “evidence and more concrete findings.”
“If it turns out that Russia was behind this attack, it would constitute an act of state terrorism,” Politico reported Tusk said.
“Authorities are working to identify the person who ordered the crime,” Tusk wrote on X Thursday.
