Russian artist and Putin critic shot dead in Poland

Posted by 2OEH8eoCRo0 1 day ago

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Comments

Comment by tartoran 1 day ago

That's so sad. I just looked up his artwork and it's hilarious. RIP Semyon Skrepetsky

Comment by red-iron-pine 1 day ago

as Russia unravels further expect to see more of this

Comment by 0x59 1 day ago

headline makes it seem obvious who did it, but he didn't fall out of a window... so I'm going to wait for an investigation before I make up my mind

Comment by littlecranky67 1 day ago

Russian assassins on foreign soil are also known to shot people during the day in broad daylight, just as [0] did in 2019 in Berlin Tiergarten park. Unfortunately, he was exchanged and is living freely after only a few years in german prison.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadim_Krasikov

Comment by Am4TIfIsER0ppos 1 day ago

So who did the Germans get in exchange? Was it worth it like a basketball player for the Lord of War?

Comment by flohofwoe 1 day ago

As for German citizens: a red cross employee, an immigration lawyer, a 'political scientist' and a tourist who apparently tried to smuggle six gummy bears coated with canabis oil into Russia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Ankara_prisoner_exchange

(also various US and UK citizens)

Comment by cubefox 1 day ago

Prisoners exchanges should be illegal if the crimes are disproportionate as in this case.

Comment by FpUser 1 day ago

I think saving one of your own who suffers because of protecting your country should take way more priority over simple vengeance.

Comment by cubefox 1 day ago

It's not "simple vengeance". It's deterrence. If you don't punish assassins, assassinations will increase in expectation.

Comment by tim333 23 hours ago

There are other ways you can deter though. Like actions against the government responsible rather than the individual.

Comment by FpUser 1 day ago

Bullshit. Who says anything about punishment. They are being punished, then there MAY come a choice. If you are so hell bent on "deterrence" look after presidential pardons. And if you do not save your own spies given a chance, the next one you want to hire will direct you straight to the place where the sun does not shine

Comment by cubefox 1 day ago

> If you are so hell bent on "deterrence" look after presidential pardons.

Yes, those create awful incentives and should absolutely not be legal.

> And if you do not save your own spies given a chance

One should not exchange spies for the cost of increasing political assasinations. Same reason as why you shouldn't pay kidnappers.

Comment by FpUser 23 hours ago

>"One should not exchange spies for the cost of increasing political assasinations. Same reason as why you shouldn't pay kidnappers."

I strongly disagree for it to be used as a general approach for either spies or kidnappers. And who says it is exactly the cost? It is all coulda shoulda woulda and depends upon the particular situation.

Comment by cindyllm 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by ogurechny 1 day ago

International politics are fake. There is a gentleman's agreement that secret services can kill “traitors” and “enemies” anywhere as long as no one objects (or the objecting country is not important enough anyway). The hirelings get the fake documents that are perfectly known to the officials to be the token of non-diplomatic immunity, and also allow them to pretend they were once again fooled by the bad foreign state. In Skripal case, killers spent the day before waiting for some agents to appear at the location to tell them to go sightseeing somewhere else. Nothing happened = UK was OK with what they were doing. Only after the fact British officials started to create a scene, and what they were worried about most was the fact that Russian officials have sold the “special” passports to way too many “irrelevant” thugs and oligarchs who wanted to be untouchable when travelling abroad (hence the leak of the existence of those passports, and silent confirmation that they were respected by so-called free and lawful countries).

You need to understand that those “above” are dumb bureaucrats playing dumb bureaucratic games. This is how societal selection works in current historical period.

As for this case, Kadyrov (or his inner circle) is known to be emo about any critic, and has been successfully killing the Chechen refugees in Europe for decades now. Ukrainians also seem to operate freely, which is a bit ironic when you remember that Ukrainian agents were taught in the same secret military schools Russian agents graduated from, and that Ukrainian oligarchs have mansions on Côte d'Azur and similar places right next to mansions of Russian oligarchs. I sometimes worry about their travel logistics in such complex times. Poor creatures!

Comment by diath 1 day ago

There's so few gun related homicides in Poland that an execution style murder is 100% either mafia affairs or assassinations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Poland#Gun_deaths_...

Comment by cosmicgadget 20 hours ago

> When the victim fell to the ground, the perpetrator approached, fired three more shots and then quickly fled the scene. Robert K died at the scene," he added.

Could have been almost anything!

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by drysine 11 hours ago

>Kadyrov and his son Adam with pigs' snouts

My money are on the president of Chechen republic.

Comment by ahartmetz 1 day ago

It seems obvious enough and there's a temporal correlation, too.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyrzd5g6k2o

>Video posted recently on social media showed Skrepetsky at a Russia Day protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin on 12 June.

>He had been carrying a painting caricaturing Putin and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, as well as a Russian flag tied to his trousers that had been dragging along the road.

The Russian trolls are out in force, suggesting that he might have been killed by some confused psychos or something.

Comment by 0x59 22 hours ago

I'm just saying I don't yet have enough information to make up my mind. Take your name calling to Reddit.

Comment by cosmicgadget 19 hours ago

It's not name calling. Russian disinformation farms are things that exist. A bunch of people in this thread are desperately pointing fingers at Ukraine and Israel.

Comment by vintermann 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by roenxi 1 day ago

The article also doesn't really outline anything that makes sense as a motive. I'd imagine there are a number of artists in Poland critical of ... pretty much anyone you care to name but especially the Russian leadership. Artists are hard to please.

The article seems to be hinting this was a Russian or Belarusian assassination, which might be true. Sounds like someone assassinated him. But if so there is a big hole to fill in the story on what a plausible reason is. Based on this my first guess would be that something in his private life spilled over, but I expect there is a section of the story that isn't in the news right now.

EDIT Also related only by the vaguest vibe, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeiweiCam is more what I'd expect for artistic dissidents and is truly remarkable modern art.

Comment by zerobees 1 day ago

> The article also doesn't really outline anything that makes sense as a motive.

That is the whole point. You can't maintain a dictatorship if you let people get to the point of being a clear threat, because sooner or later, someone could slip through the cracks and take you out. You can't keep the leash this loose.

As a dictator, you must go after people for seemingly small things, such as merely expressing the wrong thoughts, making the wrong kind of art, and so on. That sends a message to everyone that even small transgressions carry an unacceptable risk, so if your neighbor keeps criticizing the government, maybe you should report them, not join their discussion club that may become a real political movement.

For a while after the revolution that established your regime, people are on their best behavior because you just finished summarily executing hundreds of thousands or millions for having the wrong views. But both in Russia and in China, it's been a long time since that happened, few people remember Stalin or Mao, and so you need to keep sending behavioral nudges in a different way.

Also, modern-day Russia embraces a "budget" / "disposable asset" approach to terrorism. If you're important enough, they will send an elite squad to poison you. If not, they literally recruit people on the internet to beat you up, set a warehouse on fire, etc. So you also have to look at developments like as something that's cheap and largely risk-free.

Comment by roenxi 1 day ago

You can. Prigozhin, for example - the Russians have had an actual quasi-military revolt in recent times from someone who was publicly telegraphing that he didn't agree with the decisions being made by leadership. He was almost certainly assassinated by the Russians too. But that illustrates how real a threat has to be before it actually matters.

If this guy was having that sort of impact on the Russian discourse then the article is definitely missing a lot of important information.

Comment by plaidthunder 1 day ago

B-but Curtis Yarvin said that dictato-err, "kings" are better for freedom because they don't need to care what the public thinks! /s

The people in the tech industry who have cheered on mafia style government in the USA should move to Russia and get a taste of what it looks like in its advanced stages.

Comment by Barbing 1 day ago

Would it make sense to a government like that to assassinate one critic at random periodically just to keep fear high?

RIP

Edit: didn’t see him holding satirized pictures of that president, almost withdraw the question

Comment by roenxi 1 day ago

No. And pretty obviously not, look at the response. For people to hear about political assassinations it has to make the news and be widely discussed. There isn't any point murdering artists to "keep fear high", that just gives them something to create art about.

The usual tactic is to brand people as troublemakers then try and limit the news coverage they get. Or hit them with a smear campaign which is cheaper, easier and less likely to attract negative publicity like an assassination would. As a bonus the smear approach also directly discredits the message they were spreading.

Comment by Barbing 1 day ago

While this did make the news I suppose not widely enough.

Have you seen this kind of reporting?-

> Russia is ramping up its attempts to kill opponents in Europe, intelligence officials say https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/russia-ramping-attempts...

Could they please get back to smearing (or even… ADDING value to the world! once they have a better leader for their good people)

Comment by cubefox 1 day ago

> The article also doesn't really outline anything that makes sense as a motive.

False. The article makes it very clear what would make sense as a motive here.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by everdrive 1 day ago

Putin is uncowed, clearly. It's hard to know what the truth of things is. It's clear he's on his back heels in Ukraine and at home, but perhaps he still holds a strong position.

Comment by INTPenis 1 day ago

Who knows how these hits happen? Maybe the artist had a green light for a while but they hadn't been able to get a good opportunity. Do they operate like military or gangsters? I have a hard time telling the difference sometimes.

Are there mercenaries all over the world willing to kill for money from the various superpowers?

Or is it a more direct operation planned and executed in one sequence by intelligence members?

Comment by everdrive 1 day ago

I agree with your points, but I would prefer a world where Putin would say "call this off, it's too risky given the enmity we've fostered."

Comment by josefritzishere 1 day ago

There is a Streisand affect at play here. Putin dislikes the criticism but of course far more people will be now exposed to the work of Semyon Skrepetsky via this news cycle.

Comment by cindyllm 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by shevy-java 1 day ago

The KGB/FSB mafia is kind of in a state of war with the other european countries.

These executions follow a very similar pattern. Two other I can think of are Selimchan Changoschwili in 2019 and Maxim Kusminow in 2024; with regards to the latter, perma-drunk Dmitry Medvedev babbled about "a dog's death to a dog" nonsense. Tie to this the genocide Putin commits presently against Ukrainians.

I think there is no real "reasoning" possible with the current regime. It's not just Putin, naturally, but a whole parasitic society sitting and feeding on top of this mafia structure. Naturally a direct war is not really possible due to the mafia having access to nukes, but there has to be a complete shift - the diplomatic axis has to exist (no alternative to that from an objective view) while the military side also has to be strengthened, not only in Ukraine but all countries being close to Russia and the Belarus satellite state. Putin will never change as long as he is still alive. And even when he is gone, I have a slight feeling that it is more likely that one of the mafia group will take over anyway.

Comment by tim333 23 hours ago

>Naturally a direct war is not really possible due to the mafia having access to nukes

There is a bit of a war going on just now and the way to get back at Russia is to support Ukraine. Ideally to actually win rather than all the escalation management, Russia mustn't lose wimpery.

Comment by kremlin-bot 1 day ago

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Comment by kremlin-bot 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by wiseowise 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by vintermann 1 day ago

From what I can tell, he's accused strictly of speech crimes against Ukraine? For changing opinion on the war in 2023?

So maybe it's not so obvious who killed him after all.

Comment by cosmicgadget 19 hours ago

He left a bad review at a hotel in Germany. I think it's safe to say Russia couldn't possibly have done this.

Comment by vintermann 12 hours ago

Even in this thread there are people calling him a traitor to Ukraine, and he was on the big list of enemies, many of which have been killed before. It doesn't seem so ridiculous to me.

Sure, Russia could have done this - particularly Kadyrov's people. But so could Ukrainian nationalists.

Comment by cosmicgadget 3 hours ago

It's very ridiculous to think Ukraine would assassinate a critic (who has more vocally criticized Putin) on Polish soil.

Comment by joxdosba 1 day ago

It’s a war, par for the course to execute people for ”speech crimes” during such times.

We executed William Joyce and assassinated many like him, nobody seriously questions the morality of that. They deserved their fates a thousand times over.

Not commenting on whether or not this particular individual deserved their fate, but on a more general level.

Comment by shevy-java 1 day ago

You mean Ukrainians killed him? I am not sure about that. Does not make a whole lot of sense for Ukraine to kill him, since he is so unimportant compared to e. g. russian generals. Whereas if you insult Putin, the midget will of course set his hit men on people. That has been shown numerous times again and again and again. Most famous one is still Litvinenko, but remember how Anna Politkovskaya was killed, Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, Yevgeny Prigozhin and so on, and so forth. The pattern is so clear really. It sounds more like russian bots trying to engineer the narrative towards "others did it", when all the facts are way too clear. See also Yuri in the 1980s foreseeing how an asset can be manipulated by the KGB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yErKTVdETpw - KGB/FSB run Russia. See yesterday how Nikolai Patrushev babbled about bringing war to Europeans.

Comment by ivan_gammel 1 day ago

I don‘t think Putin knows anything about him or is even aware of his existence. He’s living in a cloud castle fed by briefings from his administration. It‘s likely that nobody in Moscow cared so much about this poor guy - there exist more annoying and influential people to focus foreign intelligence effort on.

But Kadyrov clan is a different story. It‘s getting weaker, its leader has according to some sources serious health problems. Moscow isn‘t keen on seeing another Kadyrov in power in Chechnya. So Chechens are more eager to suppress any attacks on the clan that question its strength and authority.

Comment by vintermann 1 day ago

Politkovskaya I think was killed on Kadyrov's orders, not Putin's. Putin and Ukrainian nationalists alike are far more angry at people they think have an obligation to be loyal to them, "traitors", than on random people who offend them.

Comment by hereme888 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by shevy-java 1 day ago

You can say this about numerous things. I fail to see any connection here.

So, let's assume he was a bad artist. How does this offset or negate being assassinated by a state?

I also fail to see how "provocative insults" are relevant here either. Am I talking to a russian AI bot here?

Comment by hereme888 1 day ago

First, you presume the state assassinated him.

Second, my first word was "Sad", so there"s no negation for being assassinated by anyone.

Third, I don't know how old you are, but I presumed most adults know that critics of Putin are known to mysteriously die.

Comment by otherme123 1 day ago

So what is the point in saying you personally don't like his art?

I mean: "JFK shoot in the head", your comment "didn't like his shoes anyway".

Comment by hereme888 20 hours ago

It's not that "I" didn't like his art, because that would be quite inappropriate in the announcement of someone's death.

The point is his art made him a high risk target in a country known to assassinate political opponents.

Comment by hereme888 1 day ago

What's the point of me saying this? Ya'll are just angry and failing to express the reason for your emotions.

The man lived in a country where vocal, public opponents of Putin get murdered. He also offended his country's (and Putin's) religion. He could have painted at least realistic-looking political figures, but chose to represent them in a vile-looking manner. That's bound to piss people off.

There's entire articles online saying exactly the same thing I'm saying.

Comment by bigyabai 22 hours ago

Your comments are getting flagged for being politicized flamebait. Your profile has a history of inflammatory non-sequiturs posted in response to articles you don't like, which is against HN's guidelines and will eventually result in your ban.

> He could have painted at least realistic-looking political figures

Why? Political caricature is a staple of Russian identity. Unrealistic, mocking artwork is regularly featrured in Russian magazines and newspapers even today: https://youtu.be/dLuKkqP_Du4

It's not illegal, this artist was ostensibly targeted because their artwork made someone angry.

Comment by hereme888 20 hours ago

I understand it could have come across as harsh for me to point out how high-risk he was given his type of artwork. You're making things up by insinuating I ever called his work illegal, called for its censorship, or hurting those artists.

Also, I make no apology for exposing the evils of the CCP, if that's what you mean by" threatening" to ban my account with a bunch of brownie points, but I promise not to cry if it happens.

Comment by 20 hours ago

Comment by IlikeMadison 1 day ago

>respected religious symbols in his country

lol... are you from the Middle Ages?

Comment by hereme888 1 day ago

The days when religion brought about the age of enlightenment?

You think being an atheist is a status boost, when most scientists, doctors, etc are openly religious?

Comment by konart 1 day ago

You can be an atheist and still respect other people and their beliefs.

In fact I'd say this is exactly what puts you into "modern empathic developed adult" busket.

Comment by hereme888 1 day ago

Reasonable comments like yours get suppressed on these websites.

Comment by throwaw12 1 day ago

interesting selection of words by BBC.

- when kids from Gaza got sniped by an Israeli: "Small number of kids found dead somewhere in the Middle East"

- when single adult killed by Russians: "Putin critic shot dead in Poland"

All lives matter, for some reason, BBC is afraid of other real criminals, who might be even more brutal than the Putin (haven't heard Russians deliberately sniping kids on a daily basis)

Comment by Tade0 1 day ago

> haven't heard Russians deliberately sniping kids on a daily basis

Sniping - no, but mostly because they can't aim and resort to shelling/bombing the genera area, even if it's far from the frontlines.

Plenty of children died like that already, but you don't hear about this because they don't have a PR machine behind them.

Comment by otherme123 1 day ago

> haven't heard Russians deliberately sniping kids on a daily basis

That would be insane! Kidnapping them en masse in Ukraine, and raise them as russian on the other hand...

Comment by throwaw12 1 day ago

[flagged]

Comment by otherme123 1 day ago

Equally bad or not as bad? Both can't be at the same time.

Also, if those kids are raised as soldiers and then "used" to kill more Ukranians or as cannon fodder, wouldn't that be even worse than killing them in the first place in some ethical view?

Comment by throwaw12 1 day ago

Equally bad from a crime perspective, but from the perspective of survivor its not equally bad for them compared to shot kid.

Read my other comments, feels like you are trying to steer the conversation to defend Israeli crimes.

Also the whole point of my comment was about how biased BBC is, on one side non-proven crime associated with Russians, on the other hand proven crimes not associated with Israelis.

And you are trying to tell me that ohh look Russia is bad as well. Was it a question actually? I was clear about pointing to what BBC is doing with its words, not downplaying the criminals actions

Comment by tokai 1 day ago

Putin did kidnap +10k kids though. I don't understand you people and why it is so important to talk down the attempted genocide against the Ukrainians. Its almost like discord and not justice is the purpurs of your kind of talking points.

Comment by throwaw12 1 day ago

I am not downplaying Ukrainian losses, I am pointing out to how biased is BBC.

Also, read carefully, BBC mentioned Russians twice, (Russian artist, and Putin critic) even though that person also criticized Ukrainian politicians. Why single out Russia, especially when it's not proven yet who killed him.

In case of Gaza though, it is 100% clear who shots kids deliberately

Comment by cosmicgadget 19 hours ago

I'm not sure your motivations but trying to muddy the waters with nonsequiturs about Israel and Ukraine seems reads like propaganda.

Comment by otherme123 1 day ago

Both are bad. You seem to imply that BBC inflates Putin evilness, or that it tune down Netanyahu evilness, and IMO they are both represented.

In fact, I have the impression that you are the one trying to downplay Putin, for example saying "Ukraine loses" instead of "Russian kidnapp" or "Russian warcrimes".

Comment by cholantesh 1 day ago

>Netenyahu evilness

Israel was an apartheid state before Netenyahu became its PM. The BBC wasn't quite as euphemistic about their settler colonial project until the 90s though.

Comment by throwaw12 1 day ago

> You seem to imply that BBC inflates Putin evilness

No, I am implying both, that BBC inflates Russian crimes, while downplaying Israeli crimes.

in this case, in the title they connected the person who was shot, twice to Russians, one using his nationality, other is by using Putin's name, to deliberately steer the focus to Russian crimes, even though it is not yet proven Russians did it, maybe indeed Russians did it, who knows, what if they did not?

On one side BBC is inflating what's not proven yet (again, they didn't say artist who critiqued politicians including Ukrainians), but downplaying what's proven: Israelis sniping kids

Comment by self_awareness 1 day ago

I want to believe.

https://vimeo.com/940390507

Comment by hootz 1 day ago

Nothing to see here guys, we have already arrested the perpetrators, move along and hail Putin.

Comment by NoSalt 1 day ago

No, I'm shocked, I tell ya ... SHOCKED!

Comment by jasonvorhe 1 day ago

> Semyon Skrepetsky (born Robert Kuzovkov), a native of the Altai region, was known for his caricatures of politicians. He had drawn satirical portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, and the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. According to iStories, Skrepetsky had also criticized Ukrainian authorities and was listed in Ukraine’s Myrotvorets database, which designates individuals accused of crimes against Ukrainian national security.

Misleading title.

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by cosmicgadget 20 hours ago

Misleading how?

Comment by self_awareness 1 day ago

American HN crowd knows better.