In early August, a large-scale prisoner exchange took place in Turkey between Belarus and Russia and Western countries. Russia, the United States, Germany, Slovenia, Poland, and Norway participated in the operation. Ten prisoners were taken to Russia. Vladimir Putin personally welcomed them at the Turkish airport. Among them was Pablo Gonzalez, who also used the data of Pavel Rubtsov, a Spanish journalist of Russian origin. He wrote mainly about the crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border and the women’s strike. His texts were published in Voice of America and Deutsche Welle, among others.
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Pablo Gonzalez was not alone. ABW also arrested his partner
Pablo Gonzalez was detained by the Internal Security Agency on the night of February 27-28, 2022 in a hotel in Przemyśl. He was in the city in connection with reporting on the situation on the border with Ukraine after the Russian invasion. As established by investigative journalists Frontstoryin addition to him, the services also detained his partner, also a journalist.
Gonzalez was taken to jail, where he was treated as a dangerous prisoner. In the case of his partner, the court did not agree to apply temporary arrest. However, the case remains pending. – He is charged in this case with aiding and abetting a crime under Article 130, paragraph 1 of the Penal Code (espionage – ed.). The proceedings in this regard are continuing normally – the spokesman for the National Prosecutor’s Office tells Frontstory.
Shortly after Gonzalez’s arrest, his partner defended the man in conversations with his relatives, minimizing the case. She is even said to be organizing funds for him to pay for a lawyer. As described by the Spanish The Independentthe woman does not know that her partner has never been divorced, has a wife and three children. Over time, the situation begins to change. In recent months, the woman has been cutting off her acquaintances with Gonzalez, although according to Frontstory sources, even before his arrest, she had begun to suspect him of collaborating with Russian services.
Currently, however, the woman does not want to talk about this topic with journalists. She works in the media, for which she reports on the work of the Sejm, NATO conferences or the situation on the border. She also cooperates with foreign editorial offices.
Pablo Gonzalez fooled almost everyone. Radosław Sikorski: The prosecutor’s office was certain of the evidence
Radoslaw Sikorski spoke about the details of Gonzalez’s release on the American radio station CNN– He deserved to be sent to prison for many, many years. He was an illegal Russian GRU spy, posing as a Spanish journalist. Our prosecutor’s office was very confident of the evidence and there was a high probability that he would be convicted. So I hope that this will be appreciated by the US. I can say that the prosecutor’s office was not happy to release him – he said.
Pavel Rubtsov was born in the USSR. His maternal grandparents were Spanish who came to the USSR in the 1930s. He also used a Spanish passport. He took the name Pablo Gonzalez. It is not known when he was recruited to the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation). In 2016, he was ordered to spy on Zhanna Nemtsova, the daughter of the murdered Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.
