Spanish Journalist or Russian Spy? The Secret of Pablo González’s Double Life

WARSAW – When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, reporters from around the world rushed to the Polish-Ukrainian border to cover refugees fleeing Russian bombs.

Among them was Pablo González, a freelance journalist from Spain who had been living in Poland since 2019, working for the Spanish news agency EFE, Voice of America and other media outlets. Reporters from Warsaw knew him as a sociable friend who liked to drink beer and sing karaoke until dawn.

Two and a half years later he was sent to Moscow as part of a prisoner exchange, leaving behind both mysteries about who he really was and doubts about how Poland had handled the case in which he was accused of being a Russian agent.

In the early days of the war, González reported on events to television viewers in Spain, showing refugees arriving at the railway station in the border town of Przemyśl.

But less than a week after the war began, Polish security agents entered the room where he was staying and arrested him. They accused him of “participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland” and said he was an agent of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

Friends were astonished—and as Poland held Gonzalez without trial for months that turned into years, some became skeptical and organized protests in Spain demanding his release. Authorities have never released details of the charges.

But on Thursday evening, the 42-year-old, muscular man with a shaved head and beard, was welcomed home by President Vladimir Putin after being released in the largest prisoner swap since the Soviet Union.

His inclusion in the deal appears to confirm suspicions that González was a Russian agent operating under the guise of a journalist.

Born Pavel Rubtsov in 1982 in then-Soviet Moscow, González moved to Spain with his Spanish mother at age 9, where he became a citizen and received the Spanish name Pablo González Yagüe. He pursued journalism, working for Público, La Sexta and Gara, a Basque nationalist newspaper.

It is not clear what prompted Poland to arrest him. The investigation remains secret, and a spokesman for the intelligence service told the Associated Press that he could not say more than a brief statement. Poland is on high alert after a series of arrests of people suspected of espionage and sabotage in what authorities see as a hybrid war by Russia and Belarus against the West.

Polish security services said Poland included him in the deal because of the close Polish-American alliance and “shared security interests.” In a statement, they said that “Pavel Rubtsov, a GRU officer arrested in Poland in 2022, (performed) intelligence tasks in Europe.”

The head of the British intelligence agency MI6, Sir Richard Moore, told the Aspen Security Forum in 2022 that González was an “illegal” immigrant who was arrested in Poland after “impersonating a Spanish journalist.”

The term “illegals” refers to spies who operate under unofficial cover, meaning they do not enjoy diplomatic immunity.

“He was trying to get into Ukraine to participate in their destabilization efforts,” Moore said.

Another clue to his activities came from the independent Russian newspaper Agentstvo, which reported that in 2016 Rubtsov befriended and spied on Zhanna Nemtsova, the daughter of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2015.

Poland-based journalists who knew Gonzalez said he used his base in Poland to travel to former Soviet countries, including Ukraine and Georgia. He had a license to operate a drone and used it to film Auschwitz-Birkenau from the air for coverage of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp in 2020.

Voice of America, an organization funded by the U.S. government, confirmed that he worked for it for a short time but has since removed all of his work from its website.

“Pablo González contributed to several VOA stories on a freelance basis over a relatively short period of time beginning in late 2020,” spokeswoman Emily Webb said in response to an emailed inquiry. “As a freelancer who contributed content to multiple media outlets, his services were arranged through an outside firm used by news organizations around the world.”

“At no time did he have access to any VOA systems or VOA credentials,” Webb said. “As soon as VOA became aware of the allegations, we removed his materials.”

As Poland’s justice system has become politicized under a populist government that ruled from 2015 to 2023, some activists have worried about whether his rights are being respected. Reporters Without Borders has been among the groups calling for him to be tried or released.

The group maintains its position that he should not have been held for so long without trial. “You are innocent until proven guilty in a trial,” Alfonso Bauluz, head of the group’s office in Spain, told the AP on Friday. He expressed frustration at the silence around the case and the fact that there apparently will be no trial at all, saying Poland has failed to produce the evidence it has against him.

However, the group expects González to provide an explanation now that he is free.

Jaap Arriens, a Dutch video journalist based in Warsaw, met the man he knew as Pablo in Warsaw and Kiev, as well as in Przemyśl shortly before his arrest.

Arriens described him as a friendly, funny man with a macho demeanor and a chest covered in tattoos, which he once showed off at a bar.

Gonzalez mostly fit the bill, but he seemed to be in a better situation than the average freelance journalist. He always seemed to have the latest and most expensive phones and computers, working on the Polish-Ukrainian border with the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro. He had plenty of money to spend in bars.

He recalled González once saying, “Life is beautiful, life is almost too beautiful.”

“And I thought, ‘Man, the freelance life is never very good. What are you talking about?’ I don’t know any freelancers who say that.”

González, whose grandfather emigrated from Spain to the Soviet Union as a child during the Spanish Civil War, was known as a Basque nationalist with ties to the region’s independence movement.

Russia is suspected of supporting separatist movements in Spain and other countries in an attempt to destabilize Europe.

González’s wife in Spain represented him during his detention in Poland, although they did not live together at the time of his arrest.

For years, supporters have run a Twitter account (now X) to demand his release.

When the Russian government announced that Pavel Rubtsov had arrived in Moscow on Thursday, the @FreePabloGonzález account tweeted: “This is our last tweet: Pablo is finally free. Endless thanks to everyone.”

Those who have been following the case are now waiting for his next steps.

He has Spanish citizenship — and the right to return to the European Union. His wife was quoted in Spanish media as saying she hoped he would be able to return to Spain.