| Pablo González Yagüe | |
| Birth Name: | Pavel Rubtsov |
| Birth Date: | 28 April 1982 |
| Birth Place: | Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Occupation: | Journalist |
Pablo González Yagüe (born Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov;[1] Russian: link=no|Павел Алексеевич Рубцов; born 28 April 1982) is a Russian spy (GRU officer) working uncovered as a Russian–Spanish journalist. He has worked as an independent journalist for different mediums, specialising in Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet countries. He has covered various conflicts like the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, the war in Donbas and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On February 27, 2022, González was arrested by Polish authorities near the border with Ukraine, and was later accused of being a Russian spy and a GRU agent.[2] After being held in pre-trial detention for 886 days, González was released in a prisoner exchange on August 1, 2024. He was welcomed by Vladimir Putin on his arrival to Vnukovo International Airport the same day.[3]
Pablo González Yagüe is a grandson of a Spanish child who was evacuated to the Soviet Union by the Spanish Republic during the Civil War. He was born in Moscow in 1982 and named Pavel Rubtsov.[4] He lived in the Soviet Union until the age of nine, when his mother divorced his father and took her son with her to the Basque Country, where she changed his name by legal process to the Spanish name Pablo González Yagüe. They resided in Bilbao and in Catalonia.[5]
He graduated with a degree in Slavic philology and a master's in strategic studies and international security. As a journalist he has worked with such publications as La Sexta, Público and Gara.[6] [7]
Shortly before his arrest, González was present in Przemyśl in Poland near Ukraine's border and has been posting on Twitter about presence of "non-white people" in the wave of refugees escaping the Russian invasion, posing with citizens of Bangladesh and Nigeria who crossed from Ukraine into Poland.[8]
According to Polish authorities, Pablo González was detained in the border city of Przemyśl on the night of 27–28 February 2022 on charges of participating in foreign intelligence activities against Poland. He was accused of being an agent of the Central Department of Russian Intelligence, taking advantage of his role as a journalist to travel around Europe and gather information. This charge carries a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison.[9] A search of his digital media by police found detailed reports on the activities of former opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's daughter, as well as people from her entourage.
Following his arrest, Polish authorities held him incomunicado. He was unable to communicate with his lawyer Gonzalo Boye or with his family, a practice against which journalists and Spanish politicians protested to the Polish authorities and to the Foreign office of Spain.[10] The Committee to Protect Journalists requested the Polish authorities provide him suitable access to legal representation and to a just and transparent procedure.[11]
On September 13, 2022, after 200 days in detention, he brought a case about his prison conditions in front of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming the violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.[12]
On November 22, Polish authorities informed him that his wife could visit him in the prison of Radom where he was being detained.[13] On November 24, the Polish justice announced that it was extending his imprisonment for three months, without making public any evidence against him.[14]
On 1 August 2024, Rubtsov was returned to Russia as part of a multinational exchange of prisoners, arriving to Moscow on 2 August.[15]