US Army soldier Gordon Black made a surprise video call from his overseas tour in South Korea with his six-year-old daughter in Texas, months before his arrest in Russia.
However, instead of a normal conversation, his daughter and his wife witnessed a fight between Black and his Russian girlfriend that turned bloody, said his wife, Megan.
The screaming turned into violence, with his girlfriend clawing at his face. Then she took out a knife.
“She stabbed him,” Megan Black said, adding that her husband “had blood on his face.” Her daughter was upset.
Black, a U.S. Army staff sergeant stationed at Camp Humphreys near Seoul, was arrested May 2 in Vladivostok, in far eastern Russia.
Staff Sergeant Gordon Black, 35, had just finished his tour of duty in South Korea and traveled to Russia without any authorization before being arrested.
Megan Black, pictured with her lawyer Jeff Linick, said she saw Black’s Russian girlfriend stab him during a video call months before his arrest.
He is being held in pre-trial detention, accused of theft after an argument, according to Russian authorities.
Megan’s attorney, Jeff Linick, detailed the fight that broke out during the video call.
“She received a call from him, out of the blue, insisting on speaking with his daughter. She didn’t expect this call,” he said.
“When she received it, he was apparently in a taxi. At one point, a woman entered the scene and apparently started shouting something in Russian.
“She doesn’t speak Russian, so she doesn’t know exactly what was said, she was obviously in the vehicle with him, and at one point it escalated to the point where she pointed a knife at him.”
“The altercation… escalated significantly, and I believe that’s when you disconnected the call.”
Kremlin-controlled Russian television said Black was arrested for beating a woman, identified as Aleksa Viktorovna, 31 (pictured together), and stealing money from her.
Jones said Black met his girlfriend at a club in South Korea more than a year ago and they had a “volatile” relationship.
His mother, Melody Jones, said he followed his girlfriend to Russia even though they were “fighting like cats and dogs.”
“I told them both: You don’t need to be together. One of you is going to get hurt one of these days, she said.
“You know, because if you fight, it’s not a good thing if that’s all you do.”
Black’s arrest poses a new headache for U.S. officials already facing several high-profile detention cases in Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
A veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Black broke Army rules by traveling to Russia without Army authorization and passing through China to get there, according to the Pentagon.
Neither Russian authorities, nor the Pentagon, nor Black’s wife nor his mother have raised espionage as a concern. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the case had no political element.
Megan became emotional as she described life with her husband and explained that they were in the process of finalizing their divorce when Black was arrested.
Linick said Black’s wife did not receive any housing allowance from her husband, which is paid to her by the military.
He added that she and her daughter were entitled to alimony under military regulations, even though the couple was separated.
His mother, Melody Jones, said Black was on two weeks’ leave during his trip to Russia.
Black claimed his girlfriend was deported from South Korea after they were involved in a dispute in the fall of 2023.
Although Megan cares for their daughter, her husband has refused to pay court-ordered child support, Linick said.
It wasn’t until she went to the Army and its lawyers that they recently began withholding part of the child support from her paychecks, he said.
“It really took some teeth-pulling…basically threatening law enforcement to finally get the military – I guess against his will – to finally withhold part of his child support payments,” Linick said .
The Army did not respond to a request for comment on the child support payments, and Black could not be reached for comment. Linick said Black represented himself in the Texas divorce.
Megan said she met her husband at a bar in 2014 in Killeen, Texas, near his base at Fort Cavazos, and recalled that he was charming at first and they hit it off quickly.
“He was good to me at one point. He accepted me because I was different because I have a speech impediment,” she said.
Aleksa Viktorovnais pictured holding a rifle
Things began to deteriorate around 2018, and Black initiated divorce proceedings shortly after leaving for South Korea.
“He wanted an open (relationship),” Megan said.
Megan said she first heard about the Russian girlfriend in January 2022 when she saw photos of them together on Facebook. The girlfriend called him “her husband,” Black said.
Jones said she believed the Russian girlfriend had been “sent back” to Russia from South Korea, possibly after a problem with her papers. She had warned her son not to follow her there.
“I tried to tell him not to go,” she said.
Megan said she and her daughter didn’t know he was in Russia and were waiting for him in Texas after his tour of South Korea had just ended.
Melody Jones said Black was on two weeks’ leave during his trip to Russia and she felt he was being framed because she suspected his girlfriend of being a spy.
Black broke Army rules by traveling to Russia without authorization and passing through China to get there, according to the Pentagon.
Neither Russian officials, the Pentagon nor Black’s wife have suggested that spying is a concern.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the case had no political element.
On May 2, the day Russian authorities said they arrested him at a local hotel, Megan said she received a message from him “telling me he wasn’t coming home.”
That was the last time she heard from him.
She said the affair had tarnished her daughter’s image of her father. “She now considers her father a bad man,” she said.
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