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Pablo González, a Spanish “journalist” of Russian origin, was among those returned to Russia as a result of the large-scale exchange of arrested persons between the USA, Germany and Russia on August 1. It turned out that his real name is Pavel Rubtsov, and he is not a journalist, but a spy.
González-Rubtsov was arrested in Poland on charges of spying for the Russian Federation in 2022 while covering the refugee crisis caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war. According to the indictment, throughout his journalistic activity, he spied for Moscow and collected information both from areas of hostilities and also about a number of Russian opposition representatives.
The Fact Investigation Platform has collected facts and information about interesting episodes of the activity of the journalist who also had some relation to the Nagorno Karabakh war.
Pablo Gonzalez’s activity in Nagorno Karabakh
Gonzalez-Rubtsov became famous in Armenia during the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war. He posed as a journalist of the Spanish news agency EFE. On October 1, a number of journalists were injured as a result of the targeting of the civilian population by the Azerbaijani armed forces in the city of Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh. That day, the journalist posted on his X microblog that he managed to save himself thanks to a ball with the Barcelona club logo, which was lying in one of the yards and caught his attention. He claimed that he had gone to take pictures of the ball and that is why he managed to lie on the ground in the yard at the time of the shelling and save himself. Gonzalez-Rubtsov’s post was covered in a number of Armenian media, as well as on the Facebook page of the RA Embassy in Spain.
Many people in Nagorno Karabakh had made friends with the journalist, and as can be seen from the Facebook posts, everyone trusted him.
A photographer from Nagorno Karabakh named Sevak Asryan published a video on his page, where one could see how Gonzalez-Rubtsov was helping to take the victims of the shelling to hospital.
Later, Asryan also referred to the news of the journalist’s arrest, stating that in any event he will be by the journalist’s side.
It is also noteworthy that as a correspondent of the Spanish news agency EFE, Gonzalez-Rubtsov also conducted an interview with RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on October 23, 2020.
González-Rubtsov’s activities and arrest of in Poland
Gonzalez-Rubtsov is actually half Spanish and half Russian. His mother, Maria Elena Gonzalez, was from a family of immigrants in the USSR. His father is Soviet scientist Alexei Rubtsov.
Voice of America wrote that Gonzalez’s maternal grandfather, Andres Gonzalez, was 9 years old when their family decided to flee the Franco regime to Russia during the Spanish Civil War.
Thus, 42-year-old journalist Pablo González-Rubtsov lived in Moscow for the first 9 years of his life, until his parents’ divorce, and moved to Spain with his mother. He speaks Russian fluently, and got his Russian surname from his father, who still lives in Moscow.
Using his background and knowledge of languages, Gonzalez-Rubtsov, who has been a journalist specializing in the countries of the post-Soviet region since 2014, also managed to win the trust of a number of Russian opposition figures.
In particular, he made friends and collected information from Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of Boris Nemtsov. As reported by the Russian “Agentstvo” news agency, Gonzalez-Rubtsov met Nemtsova in Brussels in 2016, during the discussion of the candidacy of the PACE special rapporteur on the murder of Boris Nemtsov. It was during those days that he won Nemtsova’s trust and later gathered information about the activities of Nemtsova’s foundation thanks to friendly relations.
The journalist also established contacts with Russian opposition figures Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara Murza, who, by the way, are among the Russian political prisoners who were released from Russian prisons as a result of the exchange on August 1.
As a freelance journalist, Gonzalez-Rubtsov also worked for Voice of America, a US government-funded news agency. This information was confirmed by the “Voice of America” in response to an inquiry by the AP news agency.
“Pablo Gonzalez reported for VOA for a short time as a freelancer, starting in late 2020,” said Emily Webb, a representative of the media outlet, adding: “As a freelancer who has contributed articles to a number of media outlets, his services were arranged through a third-party company.”
On February 27, 2022, González-Rubtsov was detained at the Polish-Ukrainian border by Polish law enforcement officers. According to him, he was at the border to carry out journalistic activities and to cover the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Polish authorities accused him of using his status as a journalist to gather information for the General Intelligence Department of the General Staff of the Russian Federation.
Back in March of this year, in defense of the imprisoned Gonzalez-Rubtsov, the International Federation of Journalists issued a statement that Spanish independent journalist Pablo Gonzalez is the only journalist imprisoned in an EU member state.
“It is unacceptable for an EU member state to detain a journalist in such an arbitrary manner. This is not only a violation of Pablo Gonzalez’s fundamental rights as a citizen and journalist, but also a violation of the freedom of the press and the public’s right to information,” the statement said.
The arrest was also criticized by human rights organizations Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
His wife, 38-year-old Oihana Goiriena, found the accusation against her husband ridiculous.
Arpine Hovhannisyan
