Polish prosecutors have confirmed the fatal attack on a Russian artist living in exile who was a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, announcing that two Belarusian men have been detained, the Polish news agency PAP reported on Tuesday.
"The involvement of these two men and their connection to this incident is currently being investigated," spokesman Marcin Kozak of the prosecutor's office in the eastern Polish administrative district of Lublin said, according to PAP. No charges had yet been filed, he added.
The 44-year-old artist, who went by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot on Monday in the small town of Biała Podlaska near the Belarusian border.
As he lay on the ground, the as-yet-unidentified gunman fired "two further shots at close range," Kozak said.
Of the victim, he said: "He was active as an artist and used that platform to criticize the current actions and measures of the authorities of the Russian Federation."
Skrepetsky had made a name for himself with satirical drawings mocking Putin, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. He also ridiculed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, as well as Russian opposition figures.
He had been living in Poland since 2021.
On the previous Friday - Russia's national day - Skrepetsky demonstrated outside the Russian embassy in Berlin carrying a Stalin caricature, the independent Russian online platform SOTA reported.
Security services in several European countries have warned of possible attacks on Russian government opponents living in exile.
In Spain in 2024, a Russian military pilot was shot dead. He had defected to Ukraine the previous year in his helicopter.
