Polish journalist facing espionage charges for allegedly helping Russian spy involved in prisoner swap

A Polish journalist is facing charges of being an accessory to the espionage undertaken by a Russian-Spanish spy in Poland who was recently part of the mass prisoner exchange between Moscow and the West. She was reportedly in a romantic relationship with the spy during his more than two years living in Poland.

The news was revealed today in an article by Polish investigative news website Frontstory (also published in English at its sister site VSquare). While their reporting disguised the name of the woman in question, her alleged identity was subsequently revealed by another journalist.

The Russian spy – who was born in Russia as Pavel Rubtsov but presented himself as Spanish journalist Pablo González, the name he had adopted after moving to Spain as a child – was detained while working as a journalist in Poland in February 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

While his detention was reported at the time, Frontstory notes that it went almost entirely unnoticed that the Polish security services also took his partner – a Polish journalist whom they gave the false name of Natalia K. to avoid identifying her – into custody.

The website reports that she had rented an apartment with Rubtsov in Warsaw, where the Russian had lived since at least 2019. He built extensive connections with journalists, foreign correspondents and activists in the Polish capital.

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Both Natalia K. and Rubtsov were charged with espionage. The national prosecutor’s office confirmed to Frontstory that Natalia K. had been “charged as an accessory to a crime under Article 130 of the penal code”, which relates to espionage.

The website notes that prosecutors would only have brought such charges if they believed that Natalia K. was aware she was helping a foreign spy, as the crime in question cannot be committed unknowingly.

However, whereas Rubtsov remained in pretrial detention until his release earlier this month as part of the exchange with Russia, Natalia K. was released from custody in 2022 after a court rejected a request for her to also remain in detention.

But the charges against her remain, with the prosecutor’s office telling Frontstory that “proceedings in this matter are continuing normally”.

After her release, Natalia K. went back to work as a journalist, mainly for international media outlets (she is known to have worked in the past for Euronews, France24 and The Guardian). She was involved in reporting from Poland’s parliament, its border with Belarus, and a NATO conference.

There is no suggestion that the outlets she worked for were aware of the fact that she had been charged with espionage.

As part of their research, Frontstory spoke with Natalia K. But she refused to comment on the case and insisted that her identity remain confidential “due to ongoing proceedings”. She “threatened to bury us with costly lawsuits if we revealed her name”, wrote the website.

However, shortly after Frontstory’s article was published today, Cezary Gmyz, a journalist for right-wing weekly Do Rzeczy, published Natalia K.’s real name on social media. (Notes from Poland has chosen not to publish her name due to the Polish law banning the identification of people facing charges.)

Meanwhile, Tygodnik Powszechny, a leading liberal Catholic news weekly, issued a statement referring to the fact that Frontstory had, in its report, noted that Rubtsov, under his González identity, had published an article (which was co-authored with Natalia K.) in 2020 for Tygodnik Powszechny.

In its statement, Tygodnik Powszechny published her real name and confirmed that she had presented González as her partner. It added that she was a freelancer who had published eight articles for the magazine between 2013 and 2020.

Main image credit: Kremlin.ru

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.