Agent Pavel Rubtsov had just returned to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange, and Vladimir Putin himself greeted him at the airport. It was known from the beginning that he was of great importance to Moscow, but only now did the public learn some details about his activities. It turned out that he had skillfully infiltrated the journalistic community, helped by his relationship with a Polish freelancer.
Pavel Rubcow was known in Poland as Pablo Gonzalez
In our country, agent Rubtsov operated under the name Pablo Gonzalez. According to the Frontstory portal, he lived in a relationship with Natalia K. (name changed). Together, they wrote, among other things, an article for “Tygodnik Powszechny”. He also traveled to various hot spots in the world and, thanks to his partner, established relationships with Polish correspondents.
When Rubtsov was detained by the ABW, Natalia K. was also taken into custody. The agent’s partner was eventually released, probably because of the weak charges. After this incident, the woman did not publicly admit what her partner was accused of. She returned to work and took part in important debates, appeared in the Sejm, at the NATO conference.
Only the closest friends and a few people from the journalistic community knew about the suspicions of the services towards Pablo Gonzalez. The editors she worked with may not have had knowledge about the espionage scandal and doubts about Natalia K. Since the winter of 2022, the woman has been charged with aiding and abetting espionage.
Did the Polish journalist know her partner was a spy?
Frontstory claims that Natalia K. had doubts about Gonzalez-Rubtsov’s cooperation with Russian services even before the war in Ukraine broke out. However, she refused to answer questions on the matter and threatened to sue him for revealing her name. In informal conversations, she allegedly downplayed the matter and defended her partner. It was only in recent months that she began to distance herself from him. “El Independiente” claims that the Pole did not know that Rubtsov had a wife and three children.
After the ABW raid on her Warsaw apartment, the services allegedly found receipts from Moscow in Rubtsov’s jacket. They also seized payment cards in his Russian name. A magnet with Vladimir Putin was attached to the couple’s refrigerator.
“Tygodnik Powszechny” reacts to revelations about Natalia K, confirms identity
In response to media reports about Natalia K.’s collaboration with “Tygodnik Powszechny”, the editorial office decided to issue a statement. Since the name of the accused journalist was previously given by Cezary Gmyz and “Do Rzeczy”, “TP” also used the woman’s real data.
“Magdalena Chodownik was an occasional author of ‘Tygodnik Powszechny’ until 2020. Chodownik worked as a freelance journalist, writing for many Polish and foreign titles (including The Guardian, New Eastern Europe, France 24). She has written several articles for us since 2013. Magdalena Chodownik proposed a text about the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, also proposing that her partner, a Spanish journalist who is on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh, would help with its writing,” we read in the TP press release.
“The editorial staff did not have direct contact with Pablo González, but they checked who he was (he was a member of a journalistic collective from Warsaw at the time). The article ‘Days in the basement’ was the only material co-authored by Pablo González in Tygodnik Powszechny and the last one published by Magdalena Chodownik,” we read further.
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