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

  • 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
    by 0x59
  • 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.

  • 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.

  • >Kadyrov and his son Adam with pigs' snouts

    My money are on the president of Chechen republic.

  • > 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!

  • 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_...
  • 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

  • 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.

  • >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.

  • 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.
  • as Russia unravels further expect to see more of this
  • That's so sad. I just looked up his artwork and it's hilarious. RIP Semyon Skrepetsky