A Spaniard is kidnapped by Russia since 2022: Pedro Sánchez chose to ignore his case

The president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, is applying an increasingly scandalous bias to his international policy.

Spain: a European government at the service of Hamas terrorists propaganda
Sánchez grants the Sumud flotilla the aid he denied to a Spanish woman in Thailand

Sánchez accuses Israel of 'kidnapping' a Palestinian linked to Hamas

This Friday, Sánchez addressed Israel with these words: "We demand the freedom of the Spanish citizen kidnapped on the flotilla". The Socialist leader uttered these words after stating: "Spain will always protect its citizens". Two lies in two sentences, nothing surprising for anyone familiar with this politician's track record.

As we saw yesterday, the "Spanish citizen" to whom Sánchez refers is the Palestinian Saif Abu Keshek, who is not kidnapped, but detained in completely legal terms by Israel, a democratic country where detainees have procedural guarantees that do not exist in dictatorships like China, with which Sánchez has very good relations. Saif Abu Keshek is accused by Israel of having links to the terrorist organization Hamas, an accusation supported by an official Hamas document found in 2025 and published last September by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As expected, Sánchez has made no reference to this fact.

Sánchez abandoned a Spanish woman in a coma in Thailand

Moreover, a few months ago we already had clear proof of the asymmetrical concern of the Sánchez government for Spanish citizens, a concern that depends on the relationship those citizens have with the State of Israel. As you may recall, in October Sánchez granted the Sumud flotilla—another provocation against Israel—the aid he denied to a Spanish woman in Thailand, whom the Spanish government abandoned after she suffered an accident and fell into a coma. The government claimed there were no resources available to bring this woman back to Spain, but apparently there are resources available to grant preferential treatment to far-left activists who form flotillas to violate the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, a blockade imposed in accordance with international law.

The kidnapping of elderly Spaniard Mariano García Calatayud by Russia

That Spanish woman in Thailand was not the only victim of an international policy based on the most blatant ideological sectarianism. On March 19, 2022, Spanish citizen Mariano García Calatayud, then 73 years old, was kidnapped by Russian invaders in Kherson, Ukraine. Mariano had lived in that country since 2014, is married to a Ukrainian woman, and volunteered, distributing food and supplies to those in need and attending demonstrations in support of Ukraine. The Center for Civil Liberties of Ukraine stated the following on September 25, 2023:

"He was taken at the gates of his home: two unidentified men in civilian clothes and balaclavas hit Mario in the stomach and put him in a dark blue car with no license plates. For the locals, this vehicle was familiar — it was often used to transport abducted civilians. Madrid has discussed Mariano’s case with Moscow, but Russia stubbornly refuses to recognize the detention."

In 2025 it was revealed that a former cellmate of the kidnapped Spaniard confirmed that the Russians took him from a prison in Crimea, making him believe that they were going to release him. The newspaper El Mundo reported in May 2025: "What little is known since then comes from the fragmentary information that the Kremlin has been providing and from several testimonies of Ukrainian prisoners who were in captivity with Mario". Currently, Mariano's whereabouts remain unknown.

Sánchez has not written a single message of support for Mariano in four years

Unlike his reaction to the arrest of the aforementioned Palestinian linked to Hamas, in these four years Sánchez has not dedicated a single message to the Spaniard kidnapped by the Russians in Kherson. Perhaps because he was kidnapped by Russia and not by Israel, or perhaps because Mariano has no connection whatsoever with Palestinian terrorist organizations? To date, Sánchez has not taken any diplomatic action against Russia regarding this kidnapping. Let us remember that the current Spanish Prime Minister has been severing Spain's diplomatic ties with Israel, but maintains them with dictatorships like Russia and Iran, two terrorist regimes that attack their neighboring countries and are implicated in serious human rights violations.

Sánchez engages in a definition of antisemitism that he himself endorsed

Let us recall that one of the definitions of antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), definitions that were endorsed by the Sánchez government in 2020, states: "applying a double standard by asking Israel for behavior not expected or required of any other democratic country." The coalition government of socialists and communists has gone beyond this antisemitic practice: Sánchez is applying a standard to a democratic country like Israel that he doesn't even apply to dictatorships like Russia, Iran, communist China, Cuba, or Venezuela. Although the Spanish left insists on disguising this behavior as "anti-Zionism" (that is, the rejection of the existence of the State of Israel, as if that were any less reprehensible), what Sánchez is doing is a very clear example of antisemitism according to the definition he himself endorsed.

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Photos: Novaya Gazeta Europe.