A man named Pablo González (second from left), who has his head shaved, listens to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s greetings to freed prisoners on Thursday, August 1, 2024. Russian prisoners speak as they arrive at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, Thursday, August 1, 2024.
Gavriel Grigorov/Pool AP
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Gavriel Grigorov/Pool AP
WARSAW, Poland—In February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, journalists from around the world flocked to the Polish-Ukrainian border to report on the large number of refugees fleeing Russian bombs.
Among them is Pablo González, a freelance journalist from Spain who has been based in Poland since 2019 and works for the Spanish news agency EFE, Voice of America and other media. Journalists in Warsaw know him as an outgoing colleague who likes to drink beer and sing karaoke until the wee hours of the morning.
Two and a half years later, he was sent to Moscow as part of a prisoner exchange, leaving behind a mystery about his true identity and concerns about how Poland handled his case against accusations of being a Russian agent.
In the first days of the war, González provided stand-up reports to Spanish television viewers, set against the backdrop of refugees arriving at a train station in the Polish border town of Przemyśl.
But less than a week after the war began, Polish security agents entered his room and arrested him. They accused him of “participation in foreign intelligence activities against Poland” and said he was an agent of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.
Friends were surprised — and, as Poland held González for months and even years without trial, some became suspicious and organized protests in Spain demanding his release. Authorities never detailed the charges.
But on Thursday night, the burly 42-year-old with a shaved head and beard was welcomed by President Vladimir Putin after he was released in the largest prisoner exchange since the Soviet era.
His inclusion in the deal appeared to confirm suspicions that Gonzalez was a Russian agent using his cover as a journalist.
Gonzalez was born Pavel Rubtsov in 1982 in Moscow, then the Soviet Union. When he was 9 years old, he went to Spain with his Spanish mother, where he became a citizen and received the Spanish name Pablo Gonzalez. Pablo González Yagüe. He entered journalism, working for Público, La Sexta and the Basque nationalist newspaper Gara.
It is unclear why Poland arrested him. The investigation remains classified, and a Secret Service spokesman told The Associated Press that he could not disclose anything beyond a brief statement. Poland is on high alert after a series of arrests of spy suspects and sabotage that authorities believe is part of a hybrid war between Russia and Belarus against the West.
Polish security services said Poland included him in the deal due to its close alliance and “shared security interests” with the United States. “Pavel Rubtsov, a GRU official arrested in Poland in 2022, (has) been conducting intelligence missions in Europe,” they said in a statement.
Sir Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency MI6, told the 2022 Aspen Security Forum that Gonzalez was an “illegal” who was arrested in Poland after “posing as a Spanish journalist.”
“He was trying to get into Ukraine and participate in their destabilizing activities there,” Moore said.
Another hint about his activities came from the independent Russian outlet Agentstvo, which reported that Rubtsov dated Zana Nemtsov, the daughter of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, in 2016 Befriended and engaged in espionage with Zhanna Nemtsova, who was murdered in Moscow in 2015.
Polish journalists who knew Gonzalez said he used his base in Poland to travel to former Soviet countries such as Ukraine and Georgia. He has a license to operate a drone and used it to photograph the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from the air, reporting on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp in 2020.
Voice of America, a US government-funded organization, confirmed that he briefly worked for them, but they have since removed all of his work from the website.
“Beginning in late 2020, Pablo Gonzalez worked as a freelancer on a number of VOA reports over a relatively short period of time,” spokesperson Emily Weber said in response to an email query. Contribution. “As a freelancer providing content to multiple media outlets, his services are arranged through third-party companies used by news organizations around the world. “
“At no time did he have access to any VOA systems or VOA credentials,” Weber said. “As soon as VOA was made aware of these allegations, we removed his material.”
Some activists worry about whether his rights are being respected as Poland’s judicial system was politicized under the populist government that ruled from 2015-23. Reporters Without Borders was among the groups calling for his trial or release.
The group maintains its position that he should not have been held for so long without trial. “You are innocent until a trial proves you guilty,” Alfonso Paulus, the head of the organization’s Spanish office, told The Associated Press on Friday, citing his silence on the case and the apparent lack of a trial at all. Expressing frustration, he said Poland had yet to provide evidence against him.
But the group also said it hopes Gonzalez will provide an explanation once he is free.
Jaap Arriens is a Dutch video journalist based in Warsaw who, shortly before his arrest, had been in Warsaw and Kiev, as well as in Przemyśl, with Pablo, who he knew Go out and play.
Ahrens described him as a friendly, funny man with a macho look and a chest covered in tattoos that he once showed off in bars.
Gonzalez was basically a good fit, but seemed better than the average freelance reporter. He always seems to have the latest and most expensive phones and computers, using the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro while working on the border between Poland and Ukraine. He had plenty of money to spend in bars.
He remembers Gonzalez once saying, “Life is good, life is just too good.”
“I thought: ‘Man, freelancing life is never going to be too good. What are you talking about?’ I don’t know any freelancer who talks like that.
González’s grandfather immigrated to the Soviet Union from Spain during the Spanish Civil War and was known as a Basque nationalist with ties to the region’s independence movement.
Russia is suspected of supporting separatist movements in Spain and elsewhere in an effort to destabilize Europe.
Gonzalez’s wife in Spain has defended him during his detention in Poland, although they did not live together at the time of his arrest.
Over the past few years, supporters of the suspect opened an account on Twitter (now X) calling for his release.
As he was flown to Moscow on Thursday, the @FreePabloGonzález account tweeted: “This is our last tweet: Pablo is finally free. Infinite thanks to everyone.”
Those following the case are now awaiting Gonzalez’s next steps.
He holds Spanish citizenship and has the right to return to the EU. Spanish media quoted his wife as saying she hoped he would return to Spain.
