Russia, the fake Spanish journalist was a Kremlin agent: for years he also spied on Navalny

When Pavel Rubtsov got off the plane with the other prisoners who had been exchanged on August 1 – a hacker and other spies, Killer Vadim Krasikov -He had a freshly shaved head, a Darth Vader t-shirt, and the logo “Your empire wants you.” Your empire is calling you. On the runway of Vnukovo Airport, Emperor Vladimir Putin greeted him with a handshake.
This is how the world understood why Rubtsov, born in 1982, was detained in Poland for two years, the only journalist imprisoned in Europe awaiting trial. Under the pseudonym “Pablo Gonzalez Yagüe”He holds both Spanish and Russian citizenship. He was born in Moscow, moved to Spain when he was 10 years old, and his wife is Spanish. He traveled as a journalist to the theaters of conflict in the East. From Donbass to Nagorno-Karabakh. He earned between 1,500 and 2,000 euros a month to support four children. But his mission was Spying on Russian dissidents On behalf of Moscow’s military intelligence service, the GRU, where he has worked since at least 2016. According to documents revealed by the newspaper yesterday the world, He also spied on Alexei Navalny for a long time.

Selfie with Navalny

Rubtsov González’s contacts with Navalny began in April 2017. On two occasions, he provided Russia with news of two clinics in Barcelona and Lausanne where Navalny was hospitalized: in the first he treated his right eye, which had been damaged by a missile launch. zelyonkaA paint-like “green thing” that can cause blindness. At the clinic, Gonzalez meets with Navalny. He asks him for a personal photo. Three years later, in September 2020, Navalny was recovering in the clinic from Novichok poisoning, an operation performed by Russian services. Gonzalez posts a selfie from 2017, to say that Navalny is not about to die and that he “travels abroad every two days.” Gonzalez always revealed Moscow’s version in his articles and social media posts. They considered him an excellent agent who was “permanently available.”

Reports from Europe

During his travels, between 2016 and 2021, González constantly transmits information. From Georgia, he writes what he discovers about the process of joining the European Union. From Poland it sends information about key security infrastructures. It is accredited by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; In May 2019, he moderated in Spanish the “Europe-Ukraine Forum” in Rzezo and then reported. “It went well, they will invite me back, I have made many calls.”

In September 2020, he visited the “Belarusian House” in Warsaw, where they met again Anti-Lukashenko dissidentsHe sent the Russians their photos, and even their Wi-Fi passwords. In the end, he gained confidence Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of the opponent who was killed in 2015From it, he receives the entire contents of Boris Nemtsov’s mailbox, in addition to his party’s archival documents. Through it he communicates with other dissidents: among them Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, like him, were exchanged on August 1.

Polish authorities wrote that everything he knew from them was being used to prepare “detailed reports on the opposition.” On February 28, 2022, the Poles arrested him. Laptops, phones, tablets, memories and a wireless transmitter were confiscated. But the really big news, according to the investigation, Rubtsov Gonzalez passed them around in video game conversations Which he was very excited about. In Russian, the mother tongue of the empire to which he was loyal.