Reading to Russia: How a love affair across Europe ended with a Russian jail sentence
A relationship crosses borders
In late 2023, Kercso was living in Reading, west of London, and working for an electronics recycling company. He connected online with Valeria, who was from Abkhazia, a region of Georgia’s Black Sea coast controlled by separatists since the early 1990s.
According to accounts Kercso gave his family, the pair met in Sochi and then crossed into Abkhazia, where he stayed through the autumn. His mother said the relationship worsened as he ran short of money, and he told relatives he planned to return home.
Detention and transfer to Russia
Abkhazian separatist authorities announced Kercso’s arrest on 13 December, releasing footage of their security service leading him from a car into a building. In letters to his family, he said his filmed confession in Abkhazia used a text his captors had made him memorise.
Kercso wrote that he was told he would be sent home if he recited the text, but was instead taken to the border and handed to Russia’s FSB. Over the following four months, court records registered 10 appearances as his detention was extended roughly every two weeks.
Video filmed after capture
Kercso says the Russian video showing his purported arrest was filmed in Sochi in mid-April, after he had been held for four months. He wrote that FSB officers woke him around dawn and took him from prison to a nearby filming location.
The parkland beside Sochi’s Matsesta River was identified through features including a path, bridge pillar, lamps, trees and wall, which matched archive and satellite imagery. The FSB did not respond to questions about why it released footage depicting an arrest after Kercso was already in custody.
Key points
- Kercso travelled from Reading to Sochi and Abkhazia after meeting Valeria online.
- Abkhazian separatists detained him before transferring him to Russian custody.
- He says a video of his Russian arrest was staged months after his capture.
- The FSB accused him of sharing air-defence locations; Kercso denies the charge and hopes to appeal.