{"id":1359932,"date":"2022-03-05T11:07:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T16:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1359932"},"modified":"2022-03-05T11:08:01","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T16:08:01","slug":"alleged-russian-spy-worked-for-u-s-government-news-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/alleged-russian-spy-worked-for-u-s-government-news-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged Russian Spy Worked For U.S. Government News Agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Falleged-russian-spy-worked-for-u-s-government-news-agency%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1359932&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/pablogon.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>A Spanish journalist arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia recently worked for Voice of America, the United States government\u2019s international media organization.<\/p>\n<p>Pablo Gonzalez was arrested at the Poland-Ukraine border earlier this week on charges that he was secretly working for Russia\u2019s military intelligence service, the GRU. Gonzalez, a Spanish national born in Russia, was identified as a freelance reporter for the Spanish outlets <em>El Sixto<\/em> and <em>Publico<\/em>. He has also worked as a freelance reporter for Voice of America (VOA) since at least 2020. Gonzalez helped produce a VOA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/author\/pablo-gonzalez\/$j$yr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">segment<\/a> from inside Ukraine last month, according to a <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez\u2019s previously unreported work could raise concerns that he used his VOA position to collect intelligence for Russia. If Gonzalez is indeed a Russian spy, it would lend credence to concerns raised by Michael Pack, who oversaw VOA during the Trump administration. Pack came under fire from Democrats when he <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/08\/27\/why-public-broadcasting-drifted-left-and-what-can-be-done-to-fix-it\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> VOA was &#8220;a great place to put a foreign spy&#8221; given the agency\u2019s lax security standards. VOA staffers and others in the media <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2020\/08\/31\/907764105\/voice-of-america-journalists-new-ceo-endangers-reporters-harms-u-s-aims\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accused<\/a> Pack of undermining the agency and putting its journalists at risk.<\/p>\n<p>Poland\u2019s internal security agency <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abw.gov.pl\/pl\/informacje\/1968,Agent-GRU-zatrzymany.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> Friday that Gonzalez was &#8220;conducting his business for Russia while taking advantage of his journalist status.&#8221; The counterintelligence agency said Gonzalez collected information for Russia\u2019s spy service during his recent stay in Poland and that he planned to continue his activities in war torn Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez is identified as a cameraman for a Feb. 4 Voice of America <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nH1UIqw9Id8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">story<\/a> from Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine. The story told of residents\u2019 preparations for a Russian invasion of Ukraine. A reporter who worked with Gonzalez on the story cast doubt on the allegations from Polish authorities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The accusations against Pablo are ridiculous, I have worked with him in many places and I know he is a top-notch professional,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RusiaSeMueve\/status\/1499682392587616259\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> Ricardo Marquinia, another VOA contributor.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez was detained two days after the VOA report by Ukrainian authorities and accused of reporting from military-controlled areas without proper accreditation, <em>Reuters<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/europe\/poland-arrests-spanish-national-suspected-spying-russia-statement-2022-03-04\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a>. He was released hours after that initial arrest.<\/p>\n<p>The GRU is one of the world\u2019s most aggressive spy agencies. It was behind the cyber attacks during the 2016 U.S. elections and is alleged to have hacked Ukrainian government websites during the current war. <em>Reuters<\/em> has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-britain-russia-gru-factbox\/what-is-russias-gru-military-intelligence-agency-idUSKCN1MF1VK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> that American intelligence officials also determined that the GRU has long operated a so-called &#8220;illegals&#8221; program, where undercover spies live under assumed identities in their target countries, sometimes for years.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1942, VOA is the United States\u2019 megaphone to the world, operating in dozens of countries that have historically stifled the free press. The U.S. used VOA during the Cold War to broadcast anti-Communist messages, prompting Russia and Soviet republics to jam VOA\u2019s radio signal. Russia designated VOA as a foreign agent of the United States in 2017 in retaliation for Washington placing the same label on <em>Russia Today<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzalez reported extensively last year for VOA about the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=voa%20from%3Apabvis&#038;src=typed_query&#038;f=live\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his Twitter feed<\/a> and VOA\u2019s website.<\/p>\n<p>A spokeswoman for VOA said the agency is aware of Gonzalez\u2019s arrest, and that they reported it &#8220;to all relevant security authorities.&#8221; The spokeswoman said Gonzalez was a stringer\u2014another term for a freelancer\u2014but that he had not filed a story since July 2021. The spokeswoman declined to comment about his recent story from Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Spanish journalist arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia recently worked for Voice of America, the United States government\u2019s international media organization. Pablo Gonzalez was arrested at the Poland-Ukraine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}