Romanian man sentenced in Russia for alleged Ukrainian spying after staged arrest video

David Adrian Kercso, a 23-year-old Romanian citizen who grew up in Reading, England, was sentenced to 15 years in a Russian prison for allegedly providing Ukrainian intelligence with details of air-defence systems in Sochi. He had travelled to the Black Sea region in August 2024 to meet a woman named Valeria from Abkhazia, where their online romance turned into a trip that ended with his detention by separatist authorities.

The Abkhazian SGB released a video of his initial arrest on December 13, after which he was transferred to Russian FSB custody and appeared before Sochi's Khostinsky District Court on December 14. In April, the FSB published a dramatized arrest video filmed in a Sochi park, despite Kercso having been held for months. His prison letters claim he was beaten, isolated and forced to record confessions, though these claims could not be independently verified.

A Russian lawyer noted that staging arrest footage for detained suspects is a common practice. Kercso now seeks to appeal his conviction while learning Russian in prison and lamenting his ill-fated journey driven by love.