In August, a historic prisoner exchange between the West and Russia brought to light an enigmatic character: Pablo González, a 42-year-old Russian-Spanish journalist accused of being a Kremlin intelligence agent. Received personally by Vladimir Putin at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, his release, after 886 days in prison in Poland, reignited debates about espionage, journalism and the ongoing war of narratives in geopolitics.
From journalist to alleged GRU agent
Pablo González was born as Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov in 1982, in Moscow, still in the former Soviet Union. His father, Alexey Eugenievich Rubtsov, was a Russian scientist, who reportedly had links to Soviet intelligence, while his mother, María Elena González, was Spanish, a descendant of Basque refugees who settled in the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War. After his parents’ divorce, Pablo González moved to Spain at the age of nine, where he adopted the Spanish name and lived between the Basque Country and Catalonia.
With a degree in Slavic philology and a master’s degree in international security, González built a recognized career as a journalist in Europe, contributing to outlets such as The Sixth, Public and the Basque nationalist We are. However, his arrest by Poland in February 2022, shortly after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, raised accusations that his journalistic career was, in fact, a front for his role as an agent of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. .
The espionage accusations
According to Polish authorities, who did not reveal their evidence, González played an active role in gathering strategic information. He would have monitored Russian dissidents, such as Alexei Navalny, who died this year in suspicious conditions in an Arctic prison, and Belarusian opposition leaders who are in exile, passing on sensitive data. Among the information obtained, the Polish authorities cite the addresses of clinics in Barcelona, Spain, and Lausanne, Switzerland, that treated Navalny at the time he was poisoned, as well as details about security in Eastern European countries.
Other evidence collected by the Poles includes messages that were allegedly intercepted and documents indicating reports sent to a supposed “Central Office”, a reference, according to Polish authorities, to the GRU. These records contained accurate descriptions of events and operations in Europe.
Electronic equipment found with González also raised suspicions of clandestine communications. In intercepted messages, he accurately reported events he had participated in in Moscow and mentioned being available to carry out orders, even outside conventional hours.
Before being sent to Russia, González was indicted in Poland for “providing information, spreading disinformation and carrying out operational reconnaissance”. Authorities mention that he had been practicing such activities in the country since 2016.
Strategic relationships and advertising
In addition to the alleged espionage, González would have used his influence to get closer to prominent figures in the Russian opposition. He cultivated friendly relationships with people like Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of Russian opponent Boris Nemtsov, murdered in 2015, and Ilya Yashin, another Kremlin critic. His ability to infiltrate dissident circles raised concerns that he used these connections to obtain information for intelligence purposes.
His work as a journalist also reflected a stance aligned with the Kremlin narrative. According to a report in the Spanish newspaper The WorldGonzález minimized Navalny’s poisoning in 2020, arguing that the opposition leader was not in fact a target of the Russian regime. His articles would also have suggested that organizations led by Navalny could operate freely in Russia – something that was contradicted by the opponent’s subsequent arrest and persecution of those who worked for him.
What the defense says
Pablo González’s defense denies all allegations of espionage. His lawyer, Gonzalo Boye, asked the American state website Voice of America (VOA) the absence of “concrete evidence” against his client and criticized what he called the “politicization” of his case.
For Boye, González was a victim of the growing geopolitical tension between Russia and the West. He compared the case to that of fellow American journalist Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for Wall Street Journal who spent a year imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges and was also released in a prisoner exchange.
“No one in the US has questioned that Gershkovich was simply a journalist. We think that neither Gershkovich nor Pablo González are spies, but journalists caught in a new kind of Cold War where the truth matters little,” Boye said.
The International Federation of Journalists denounced the conditions in which González was imprisoned, which included long periods of isolation and treatment described as “inhumane”.
Consulted by VOA, Spanish intelligence agents said they believed Pablo was in fact a Kremlin spy infiltrating the West. According to the website, Polish intelligence and Richard Moore, head of MI6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service, also said that the Russian-Spanish man worked for Moscow.
“(Gonzalez) was trying to get into Ukraine to be part of destabilization efforts there,” Moore said, referring to the location where Pablo González was arrested in 2022, on the border between Poland and Ukraine.
Prisoner exchange
González’s release was part of a prisoner exchange that included journalists, activists and even a Russian murderer convicted in Germany. Putin’s reception, personally present at the prisoners’ return to Moscow, reinforced international suspicions that González was more than just a journalist.
Upon receiving those released, including the suspected journalist, Putin reportedly said, according to VOA: “I want to thank you for being faithful to your oath, your duty and your country, which has not forgotten you.”
Pablo González has a wife and children who still live in Spain and mentioned their desire for the man’s return, who is currently on Russian soil. While the evidence in his case remains under seal, the mystery surrounding his situation continues to raise questions: Was González wrongly accused or was he in fact a skilled spy using journalism as a cover?