The Russian cartoonist who lampooned the conservative State Duma deputy Natalia Poklonskaya says he plans on seeking political asylum in France. According to the website Kamchatka-Inform, Denis Lopatin has been in Europe since February, and he’s now filing asylum paperwork and enrolling in French language classes.

Lopatin first displayed his Poklonskaya caricature at a protest in October 2017 against religious conservatives who opposed the release of a film about the romance between the ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya and Nicholas II. Russian Orthodox activists like Poklonskaya say the movie offends Christians because they believe it “distorts historical events” surrounding a martyred saint. The cartoon shows a hungry-eyed Poklonskaya hugging a sex toy in the shape of Nicholas II. A caption reads, “Find a man for this idiot!” Members of a supposed “Cossack group” later stole the banner.

Activists in Kamchatka demonstrate in support of the film “Matilda.” Kam24.ru

This spring, local Christian activists in Kamchatka filed a complaint against Lopatin’s cartoon, but investigators concluded that the image doesn’t contain illegal hate speech. In late May, Poklonskaya appealed directly to Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin, asking him to treat the caricature as an insult intended to offend Christians, demanding that the cartoon be scrubbed from the Internet.

Lopatin says he didn’t want to offend anyone with his cartoon, claiming that his caricature wasn’t aimed at anyone specifically. The drawing merely “ridicules people who try to pass off their unspent sexual energy as spirituality,” he says.