Translated material
"Reminds me of Charlie Hebdo." Murder of Semyon Skrepetsky
On Monday, in Poland, in the border town of Biała Podlaska, Russian action artist Semyon Skrepetsky was killed at point-blank range by several shots. He was known for his harsh satirical drawings, in which he ridiculed everyone - from Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov to Vladimir Zelensky and Alexei Navalny.
Skrepetsky (real name Robert Kuzovkov) drew caricatures of Russian oppositionists, including Alexei Navalny, as well as the leadership of Ukraine, including Vladimir Zelensky. Recently, Ukrainian activists posted his data on the “Peacemaker” website, accusing him of “supporting the Russian narrative about the war.” Among Skrepetsky’s latest actions was a showing of one of his paintings to visitors of the Venice Biennale on May 6 and an action on Russia Day on June 12 in Berlin, during which he walked at the Brandenburg Gate and the Russian Embassy with an icon of Stalin and Putin instead of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus and a Russian flag sticking out of his pants like a tail, dragging on the ground.
Skrepetsky’s drawings and actions were truly offensive to those whom he ridiculed, and even after the artist’s murder, this fact continues to be discussed on social networks - although most of all commentators seem to be frightened by the ease with which the organizers of the crime were able to arrange, in broad daylight in an EU country, a virtual public execution of a person they did not like, and who was neither a former GRU colonel, like Sergei Skripal, nor a Chechen field commander, like Zelimkhan Khangoshvili.
The swearing was replaced with asterisks by the editors, some posts were shortened.
Semyon Skrepetsky, a crazy brave guy, was killed. I suspect that sh*t has nothing to do with it, rather an order from Kadyrov. All this reminds us of Charlie Hebdo - in our global world it is deadly to laugh at murderers and savages. RIP.
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Semyon Skrepetsky was killed in Poland from a firearm. He was an artist who drew cartoons on topics related to Russian politics. In general, he was a difficult person, like many creative people. And then he was killed in Poland by a gunshot. I dare to assume that this was done precisely for reasons of political hostility.
This is a big blow and challenge for the entire Polish security system. I hope that appropriate measures will be taken, and the investigation will not be limited to just the search for customers and performers. It is known that a stable network of Russian agents and their affiliates already exists in Poland.
I openly declare and call on the Polish authorities to arrest everyone who was previously in the area of suspicion. The line has long been passed.
The deceased Skrepetsky suffered, I think, for his Kadyriana, and especially for the series about Kadyrov’s love for animals (specifically donkeys).
He was a pretty harmless troll
Otherwise he was a fairly harmless troll.
Towards the end of his life, he began trolling Ukrainians, for which he ended up in the Peacemaker.
Semyon Skrepetsky. From our correspondence during the preparation of the action at the Biennale:
“I am against the f*ck, against the empire and for the collapse of Russia. You have been against the empire for three years, and I have been against the empire for 30 years.
I can’t stand the attack on the entire Moscow opposition precisely because of their imperial views. Because they are satisfied with the structure of Russia. Even if Yulka Navalnaya is placed on the throne instead of Putin, nothing will change for the people of Russia.
My cousin went to earn money, kill Ukrainians, and he was killed. Nobody forced him. He was a quitter and a drunk. I just went to make money.
I share your views in many ways, but I differ from you in that I have lived all my life in this Russian world, at the very social bottom. It’s not that I’m at the bottom, but the bottom is exactly the same Russian outback where a simple Russian, Altai, Bashkir person lives.
I worked with them, fished, communicated, etc. That is, I know this Russian world from the inside. For many years, I even had a toilet on the street and the water was in a well 200 meters from the house.
I know this Russian world from the inside
The problem with intellectuals is that they haven’t seen this fucking Russian world with their own eyes and are making up a lot of things. And I passed the social bottom. He lived among criminals, drug addicts and eternal prisoners. Therefore, I know this world, its thoughts and desires. I wrote a book, Russia 2028. It raises these questions.
(...) I started my life right in the social day, among punks. I even spent almost a year in prison. Then I grew up, met a girl I fell in love with, we had a child and I had to take responsibility, because I realized that no one else needed this child in this hostile world except me.
Elite of the shit. Artist Semyon Skrepetsky pic.twitter.com/rS0Yhm13R7
— Nasha Canada🇨🇦Our Canada (@NashaCanada) February 23, 2025
And I had to join the society of the proletariat. And there I already discovered the Russian world. Biting spiders in a jar, hatred, envy, snitching, drunkenness, theft, etc.
I'm in Poland. From 2021. I took the whole family out. I have 5 children. I broke the system. He raised a large family and took it to Europe. It’s just that at the age of 21 I came to the realization that I urgently needed to save the children, since I gave birth. No one can save me but me. I pulled myself together and left.
I wouldn't go on my own. I'm not afraid of prison. I would have served it without any problems. I am a carver and tattoo artist. No matter where I live, I can earn money from cheese and sausage. The eldest daughter is 24. The youngest is 17. Four daughters and a son.
Although my paintings look like primitive caricatures, they always contain a deep meaning, many references, etc. I don’t have paintings without meaning, and before creating an image, I have to understand the issue and draw parallels. I thought about the destruction of peoples. There was an idea to depict a modern interpretation of Saturn Eats Children. But indigenous peoples are not fucking children, so that’s out of the question...”
I have collected several remarks from our correspondence into this single text. It makes it clear who Semyon was, how strong an independent-minded and courageous person he is, and what his views were at the time of our correspondence (spring 2026).
I consider it necessary to quote this, because I see that speculation and dancing have already begun on the bones of a man killed just yesterday.
This is what I hate with all my heart.
I repeat, we were not closely acquainted with Semyon, and I certainly was not close to his aesthetics and his worldview, but this was not required. I think I won’t reveal anything personal if I say that during the work we argued a lot and I didn’t like his pressure and many of his statements.
We met personally only a month ago in Venice (he came to the action on his own, at his own expense; it was important for him to participate personally), and a month before that we began to correspond during the preparation of a decolonial art action at the Biennale, which also became a protest action against the Russian pavilion.
Then there was another march of the Biennale of Dissent together with the Europa Radicale party and with the Ukrainian diasporas on Europe Day on May 9.
Semyon was there with us and broadcast. We had a good chat in person. There were videos and photographs.
After that, they began to write to me asking if I knew his statements and other details. I didn't know them. It was, to put it mildly, different. But we didn’t communicate anymore.
And yet we need to honestly acknowledge the scale. And the fact that he was the target. The way he was - an enemy of the empire and the Russian world.
He came out of the people. And he knew him.
To paraphrase Grigory Skovoroda:
The Russian world was looking for him, but did not catch him.
And the rest you can judge and discuss for yourself.
The man has already been killed.
They kill artists.
They bomb churches.
They're aiming for museums.
These are all links of one chain.
One chain of unfreedom, which is unbearable near anything living and free. Is there anything freer than art? Any.
The cultural front is one of the main ones.
Mass culture too. They themselves admit this in their manuals, at their economic forums and, most importantly, through their actions.
They are afraid and that is why they kill.
They will lose, but they will not bring back living people.
Blessed memory
Ghouls, it seems, have not yet killed artists. Skrepetsky was killed after a performance on June 12, “Russian Independence Day,” near the Russian embassy in Berlin.
He bravely drew completely uncompromising cartoons in which he ridiculed Putin's power. He reported that he was threatened by “Russian patriots,” especially after the action at the Venice Biennale, but on June 12, the artist Skrepetsky nevertheless held a rally at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, throwing the Russian flag into a trash can. After this, the artist walked near the embassy with an “icon” depicting Stalin with baby Putin in his arms.
And so.
This morning he was shot dead in Poland, in a parking lot.
The artist was 44 years old... This is a clear attempt to intimidate all the critics of the authorities who have left. This is what this contract killing means.
Happy memory to the brave artist...
After the February concert in Warsaw, Skrepetsky came up to me and gave me a T-shirt painted that morning.
“Sorry,” he says, “it’s a little wet, I danced in it the whole concert. Then you’ll sell it when they get me wet and buy yourself an apartment.”
I won't sell anything.
Killed Skrepetsky - a charismatic and strong artist who painted ironic, provocative, often openly pornographic caricatures of... everyone. On Putin, on Navalny, on Kadyrov, on the Ukrainians (for which he was blacklisted by “Peacemaker”), etc., etc.
Of course, I don't condone murder.
And at the same time, I really don’t like it when people of art consider themselves simply free from any rules, that they have the right to insult anyone and however they want.
His way is not our way
Skrepetsky was a charismatic person and a strong artist, and I myself generally do not like the victims of his art.
But his way is not our way.
Peace to ashes R.I.P.
Skrepetsky, you say? Yes, he drew excellent caricatures of Putler and Kadyrkin, but he was full of hatred for Ukraine. And this happened 2 years after the start of the war.
He said about Russians and Ukrainians, quote: “mice are one people.”
He advocated stopping humanitarian aid to Ukraine and closing the corridor through Poland.
The fact that he was killed is completely wrong, but there is no particular sadness either.
Sometimes people have a knack for ruining their own obituary.
What happened was terrible, but what Skrepetsky painted was never satire, it was always a passionate desire to insult, no matter who. A completely painful obsession with stories repeated over and over again in which he did not ridicule, but rather insulted, to the maximum… https://t.co/X8Xd3SkHpO pic.twitter.com/lpm1v0tbSr
— we may not repeat it (@mojemnemojem) June 15, 2026
Semyon Skrepetsky turned himself into an art gallery, carrying pictures on himself like a sandwich man. And he turned his life itself into a performance and tried to involve others in it. For example, go to a gay pride parade wearing bast shoes and holding an icon, expecting an extremely negative reaction. He infuriated everyone, both Navalny’s fans and the compilers of the peacemaker’s list.
His last performance was supposed to involve German police The artist Pyotr Pavlensky sets himself a similar condition for performances - the participation of government officials: since in Germany it is forbidden to desecrate the flag (even the Russian one), this flag had to be taken away by law enforcement officers. True, he miscalculated, relying on the severity of German laws - he had to complete the action himself.
And what happened recently is a kind of super radical performance, if you can still use that word. Although, perhaps, it should be called differently - a performance that ends with the artist’s life. I wonder if there are other similar cases? I remember Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Chris Burden, Bas Jan Ader, but everything is not so radical there. For him, this is a chronicle of an announced murder, with screenshots as proof.
Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Chris Burden, Bas Jan Ader come to mind
Here is his work in a slightly different spirit and under a different mask, signed with the name Robert Bourdai. But it is even more creepy than those works that went viral on the networks.
An idyllic landscape with clearly Ukrainian motifs, and at the top is the creepy god Świętowit with a cornucopia from which sunlight pours. And this is not satire, not hyperbole, not grotesque or any other cliche with which you can defend yourself against his famous works.
The murder was more like an execution: the killer came close to Semyon and shot several times.
I think what happened does not surprise those who knew Semyon’s work. His paintings were on the verge and slightly beyond the foul. And from his paintings one can count those who wished him dead.
It is probably wrong to compare his work and the situation with what happened with Charlie Hebdo at one time, but the analogy inevitably suggests itself.
And I also secretly hope that after some time what happened can be compared with another “crime”, when they “shot” at one of the reserve sergeants. And all this will turn out to be staged, but Semyon is alive.
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