On Monday, the FrontStory portal published an investigative text by Anna Gielewska, “Magnes z Putinem,” about the behind-the-scenes story of Pavel Rubtsov’s relationship with the Polish journalist.
Rubtsov, who had been living in Poland for several years, posed as Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez, thanks to which he gathered information for Russian special services on the situation in Ukraine of Russian oppositionists in exile. He was detained by the ABW on the Polish-Ukrainian border in the winter of 2022. His detention in Poland in 2022 was responded to by international journalistic organizations such as Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists.
Rubtsov was released as part of a spy exchange between Russia and Western countries in August 2024.
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FrontStory: Polish journalist arrested with spy
As FrontStory reports, together with him, Polish services detained a Polish journalist who is charged with aiding and abetting espionage. It was thanks to this relationship that Rubtsov vel Gonzales was supposed to have built a network of acquaintances with journalists in Poland, which could have helped him in his work for Russian intelligence – FrontStory describes.
On the X website, the probable identity of the journalist (which FrontStory did not reveal) was revealed by “Do Rzeczy” journalist Cezary Gmyz.
Magdalena Ch. created traditional and multimedia reports. She collaborated as a freelancer with Polish and foreign media: “The Guardina”, Euronews, “Przegląd”, Holistic.News and “Tygodnik Powszechny”. The last of the mentioned titles strongly emphasized in a statement that the journalist was not part of its permanent team. In October 2020, the title published the text “Days in the Basement” by Magdalena Ch. and Pablo González about the tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh. The editorial team stated that the journalist was “O“the editors will be the sole contributor to Tygodnik Powszechny until 2020,” the editorial office said.
The press release explained that the journalist had written only a few texts for Tygodnik since 2013, and that “Days in the Basement” was the last and only one where González’s name also appeared.
„The editorial staff did not have direct contact with Pablo González, but they checked who he was (at that time he belonged to a journalist collective from Warsaw)” – reports “Tygodnik Powszechny”.