Ben Pawlowski
A SPANISH journalist arrested in Poland on suspicion of spying for the Kremlin has landed in Russia as part of a swap deal between Russia and the West described as the most significant since the Cold War.
Pablo Gonzalez – real name Pavel Rubstov – had been incarcerated in ‘Poland’s Guantanamo’ since 2022, and was one of eight prisoners Russia received as part of the massive swap deal.
He was publicly accused by the head of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, of being part of ‘Russia’s destablising forces’ after he was arrested accused of spying for the Kremlin.
Gonzalez, who has both Spanish and Russian passports, was detained on February 28, 2022, as he reported on the refugee crisis at the Polish-Ukrainian border, provoked by President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Polish officials claimed he was an agent of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency responsible for acts including the infamous Salisbury Novichok poisonings in the UK.
Footage released by the Kremlin showed Gonzalez, alongside seven other prisoners, being met by Putin as they landed in Moscow.
READ MORE: Pro-Putin Ukrainian journalist accused of treason is arrested in Spain’s Catalunya region
Among the released was Vadim Krasikov, an FSB hitman who was held in Germany after assassinating a Chechen rebel in 2019, described as a ‘patriot’ by Putin.
The Russian president said: “I would like to greet everyone upon returning to the motherland. I would like to thank you for your loyalty to the oath, devotion to your duty and your motherland, that hasn’t forgotten you for a minute and now you are home”.
Gonzalez was born in Moscow in 1982 and nine years later moved to Spain where he worked for outlets including TV station La Sexta.
As part of the swap deal, the Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich was released by Moscow after he was jailed for bogus espionage charges.
The 32-year-old, alongside former US marine Paul Whelan, 54, and Alsu Kurmasheva, 47, a Russian-American journalist, landed in Maryland, U.S on Thursday where they were met by President Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president.
Gershkovich had been arrested in March last year as the Kremlin accused him of being ‘caught red-handed’ trying to obtain defence secrets for the CIA from a weapons plant.
He was sentenced to a 16 year jail sentence following a three-day trial widely slammed as a sham.
He had been the first Western journalist to be accused of spying by Moscow since 1986.
The seismic swap deal was brokered by Turkey and involved numerous countries.
