Poland was lavished with praise by the US administration after it consented to the release of a Russian spy from a Polish prison, helping broker the biggest prisoner swap between Russia and the West for decades.
Politicians from Poland’s opposition have however criticised the government for the release of the Russian agent without securing in return the release of ethnic Poles being held in Belarus. They include Polish journalist Andrzej Poczobut who is serving a lengthy sentence in a Belarusian labour camp.
On August 1, Polish security services confirmed that Pavel Rubtsov, also known as Pablo Gonzalez, a Russian-Spanish dual national held on espionage charges in Poland since 2022, had been released as part of a wider prisoner swap.
The prisoner exchange, conducted in Ankara, Turkey, saw the release of 26 individuals from both sides. Russia freed individuals including Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition activist with British citizenship, former US Marine Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, and German citizen Rico Krieger, who had been held and sentenced to death in Belarus.
In return, the West released Russian spies and agents including Vadim Krasikov, a Russian intelligence officer involved in a high-profile assassination in Berlin, and Pavel Rubtsov, detained in Poland since 2022.
The spokesman for the Polish security services, Jacek Dobrzyński, noted that Rubtsov had been released “at the request of the US”.
Dobrzyński added that Poland “ welcomed with satisfaction the declaration of the US authorities to intensify co-operation in the fight against the hybrid aggression of Russia and Belarus against Poland, including the threat of sabotage ”.
US National Security Council, John Kirby, told Polish commercial 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.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda’s chancellery later confirmed he had received a call from US President Joe Biden “to thank him for Polish assistance in releasing American citizens illegally imprisoned in Russia”.
Poland’s Rime Minister Donald Tusk has publicly thanked Duda for his “exemplary co-operation” in the prisoner swap operation. Duda is an ally of the opposition Conservatives (PiS) and normally an opponent of Tusk’s government.
The compliments from the US administration did not convince opposition MEP Mariusz Kamiński, who served as interior minister in the last PiS government.
“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 co-ordinator of the security services, I conducted talks with the Americans on this matter.”
He said he had been pressing for exchanging the Russian spy for Poles detained in Belarus.
“I proposed handing Pavel Rubtsov over to the Russians, but our condition was that, in return, Belarus would hand over two ethnic Polish prisoners it was holding,” said Kamiński.
One of those is Andrzej Poczobut, a leading figure in Belarus’s Polish minority and journalist for Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, who was sentenced to eight years in a labour camp for “inciting hatred” and “the rehabilitation of Nazism”.
Poczobut’s imprisonment was seen as retaliation by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime over Poczobut’s active participation in the anti-Lukashenko protests that followed what were regarded as rigged Belarusian elections in 2020.
Now, “Tusk’s team have given the Russians their most valuable agent and have gained nothing in return”, Kamiński said on X. “Disgrace!”
Other figures from the PiS echoed that criticism, including Kamiński’s former deputy at the interior ministry, Maciej Wąsik MEP, 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!”
During Donald Trump’s US presidency, the PiS administration had been a close ally of Washington and was able to get greater numbers of US troops deployed to Poland. That relationship also led to US involvement in Poland’s nuclear power programme and the beginning of US LNG supplies to Poland that helped it end its dependence on Russian gas.
On August 2, 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, as 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.”
This is not the first time questions have been asked in Poland about whether the country has been too accommodating regarding the US without getting anything in return. They were also asked over what Poland had gained from sending troops to Iraq and supporting then-US president Barack Obama’s “reset” policy with Russia.
Cezary Michalski, in a recent article for Interia regarding Poland’s pride in being praised for valour and selflessness, recalled a quote from a tthe late Polish early 20th century writer Jan Emil Skiwski: “Other nations are prepared to die for riches, territory or faith, but Poles seem to be prepared to do it just to be complimented.”
