This is what the two journalists “Wall Street Journal” Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson say in the US book. Their “swap. A Secret History of the New Cold War” describes how a loud exchange of the West and Russian spy for political prisoners in 2024 describes how a loud exchange of the West and Russia.
On August 1, the largest group exchange of prisoners between the US and Russia took place at the airport in Ankara. In addition to these two countries and Turkey, Belarus, Germany, Poland, Norway and Slovenia participated in the operation. Russia freed 16 people, including journalist Evan Gershkovich and eight Russian journalists and opposition activists. The West released, among others Wadim Krasików killer and the marriage of Russian spies in Slovenia pretending to be Argentineans.
Among the people who returned to Russia, there was Pablo Gonzalez, a Spanish journalist who for several years worked as an agent of Russian military intelligence GRU. His story after detention in February 2022 was widely described in the media, now Hinshaw and Parkinson add further details of this extraordinary story.
According to them, the Polish government wanted the Belarusians to release Andrzej Poczobut, the correspondent of “Gazeta Wyborcza” in Minsk, as part of the exchange. “However, the United States Ambassador explained that this would cause additional complications that could threaten the entire agreement,” we read in the book. – “Before [prowadzący z krajami europejskimi rozmowy przygotowujące wymianę pełnomocnik prezydenta USA ds. uwolnienia zakładników Roger] Carstens reached Warsaw, Polish officials only needed a small encouragement to approve his proposal to include Gonzalez in the transaction developed in Washington. “
We don't know what the “encouragement” was.
The authors of the book also reveal that although Gonzalez was defended after arrest in Poland by journalists and local politicians in Spain, in fact Spanish counterintelligence knew about his work for GRU for at least 2014.
“Spanish Centro Nacional de Inteentia He followed him in 2014 and watched him help in the settlement of Gru officers arriving to support the separatists in the north-eastern part of Catalonia. ” Analysts were surprised that Gonzalez sent some of his documents to the cloud. For spy catches, this two -cultural spy was a gift of heaven, whose natural talents were associated with regular stumbles in spy craft. Two days after he took a selfie with the Russian opposition leader Alexej Navalny at the Barcelona clinic, he got on the plane flying to St. Petersburg with a passenger named Sergei Turbin, a official working in the Directorate of GRU for foreign agents – their tickets were purchased with the same credit card. “
The authors of the “exchange” claim that Gonzalez long before the arrest in Przemyśl in February 2022 was therefore, contrary to media reports, known to Polish services, whom he observed his actions in Poland. However, when Gonzalez returned from Ukraine to Poland at the end of February 2022, the British intelligence Mi6 informed Poles that Gonzalez's activities are increasingly dangerous. The Internal Security Agency detained the Spaniard.
On the occasion of Hinshaw and Parkinson, they explain why Gonzalez was wearing a T -shirt with the inscription “Star Wars”, when he landed in Moscow on August 1, 2024. Well, the Russian spy loves “Star Wars”, but talking about the heroes of a series of films, he always talks to the Empire Empire. He even has Darth Vader tattooed on his leg.
