WARSAW – Polish prosecutors said Wednesday that they formally indicted a Russian-Spanish man on espionage charges, after Poland freed him from prison earlier this month so that he could be included in a prisoner swap between Russia and the West.
Pavel Rubtsov, better known as Pablo González, was arrested on Feb. 28, 2022, days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in Przemysl, a Polish town near Ukraine’s border. He had presented himself as a Spanish freelance journalist and was filing reports to Spanish media. He had lived in Poland since 2019.
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He was held in detention in Poland until he was included in the prisoner exchange on Aug. 1, and is now in Russia. It wasn’t immediately clear why Poland waited until after he had left the country to indict him.
Born Pavel Rubtsov in 1982 in then-Soviet Moscow, González went to Spain with his Spanish mother at age 9, where he became a citizen and received the Spanish name of Pablo González Yagüe. He went into journalism, working for outlets Público, La Sexta and Gara, a Basque nationalist newspaper.
The head of U.K. foreign intelligence agency MI6, Sir Richard Moore, said at the Aspen Security Forum in 2022 that González was an “illegal” who was arrested in Poland after “masquerading as a Spanish journalist" and that he was trying to go into Ukraine to be part of Russian destabilizing efforts there.
The term “illegal” refers to spies who operate under nonofficial cover, meaning that they don’t benefit from diplomatic immunity.
According to investigative media reports, the man also sought contacts with Russian dissidents living abroad and had contacts with Basque and Catalan separatist movements, which are suspected of links to the Kremlin.
The national prosecutor’s office in Warsaw said that a prosecutor in the city of Lublin filed the indictment on Aug. 9 to the District Court in Przemysl. They identified the indicted man as Pablo G. Y. and Pavel R., withholding last names according to Polish privacy laws. However, the details make it clear that the case refers to the suspected GRU agent Rubtsov.
The defendant is accused of committing an offense related to espionage, which can bring a prison term of three to 15 years.
It wasn't immediately clear if Rubtsov would be tried in absentia.
The statement said that the defendant is accused of providing information to Russian military intelligence from April 2016 to February 2022 in Przemysl, Warsaw and elsewhere, "which could cause damage to the Republic of Poland, including as a NATO member state."
It also said his activity included “spreading disinformation and conducting operational reconnaissance."
The 42-year old stepped off a plane and shook hands with President Vladimir Putin when he landed in Moscow on Aug. 1. He was wearing a T-shirt with the image of a Star Wars stormtrooper and the words “Your empire needs you."
The national prosecutor’s office said that investigations are taking place separately into an unspecified number of other people, including a woman they identified only as Magdalena Ch. The woman, known among journalists in Poland to be his ex-girlfriend, refused to comment.