Polish opposition criticises release of Russian prisoner while Poles remain detained in Belarus

Poland’s opposition has criticised the government for yesterday releasing an alleged Russian agent as part of the US-led mass prisoner exchange with Russia without securing in return the release of ethnic Poles being held in Belarus.

On Thursday evening, the Polish security services confirmed that Pavel Rubtsov (also known as Pablo Gonzalez), a Russian-Spanish dual national held on espionage charges since 2022, had been released as part of the prisoner swap.

This morning, Mariusz Kamiński, an MEP for the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party who served as coordinator of the security services from 2015 to 2023, criticised Poland’s involvement in the deal.

“Negotiations on a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West have been going on for at least a year and a half,” he wrote. “As the coordinator of the security services, I conducted talks with the Americans on this matter.”

“I proposed handing Pavel Rubtsov over to the Russians,” continued Kamiński. However, he added that “our condition” was that, in return, Belarus would hand over two ethnic Polish prisoners it was holding.

One is Andrzej Poczobut, a leading figure in Belarus’s large Polish minority, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for “inciting hatred” and “the rehabilitation of Nazism”. The other is a man, unnamed by Kamiński, who “was sentenced to 12 years in a gulag for collaborating with the Polish services”.

But now, “[Prime Minister Donald] Tusk’s team gave the Russians their most valuable agent getting nothing in return”, said Kamiński. “Disgrace!”

Other figures from PiS echoed that criticism, including Kamiński’s former deputy, Maciej Wąsik, who declared: “Tusk sold out Andrzej Poczobut. Rubtsov is free, Poczobut is in prison. This is a huge scandal and shame for the Polish state!”

In a completely separate case, both Kamiński and Wąsik were convicted in December for abusing their powers and banned from holding public office. They briefly served jail sentences in January before receiving presidential pardons.

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Later on Friday, foreign minister Radosław Sikorski commented on the issue of Poczobut in relation to the prisoner swap.

“It was mainly an American-Russian operation,” he said, quoted by news website Interia. “I would like to assure you that the efforts to release other political prisoners, Belarusian political prisoners, including Andrzej Poczobut, are taking place in a different manner. He is in my thoughts every day.”

In a statement on Thursday evening, the spokesman for the security services, Jacek Dobrzyński, noted that Rubtsov had been released “at the request of the US”.

He added that, “we welcomed with satisfaction the declaration of the US authorities to intensify cooperation in the fight against the hybrid aggression of Russia and Belarus against Poland, including the threat of sabotage actions”.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, told Polish broadcaster TVN that Washington was grateful for Poland’s assistance.

“These were certainly not easy decisions,” said Kirby. “Poland is a strong NATO ally, a partner country, and now your authorities have proven that they are also a good friend.”

On Thursday evening, the office of Polish President Andrzej Duda announced that he had received a call from Joe Biden “to thank him for Polish assistance in releasing American citizens illegally imprisoned in Russia”.

Tusk also yesterday thanked Duda for his “exemplary cooperation” in the operation. Duda is an ally of PiS and normally an opponent of Tusk’s government.

Main image credit: Grzegorz Dabrowski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.