Before she was discovered in Karnataka cave, Russian woman’s 8-year whirlwind romance with Israeli partner

According to a missing persons’ complaint lodged by Goldstein at Goa’s Panaji police station on December 14, 2024, he met Nina in October 2017 at Arambol during a visit to Goa.

Goldstein said they “fell in love”.

“Our meetings increased, and eventually we started living together at her place with two of her sons from her earlier partner,” he claimed in the complaint. Things took a turn, he claimed, as she would misbehave with and “extract monies” from him.

In May 2018, he made travel arrangements for them to leave for Israel. But due to documentation issues related to overstaying without a visa and the lack of travel permits for her son, she was deported to Russia and started living in Ukraine.

“I slowly started cutting off my contact with her due to her behaviour towards me. I felt as if I was used only for money purposes,” he said.

In June 2018, she informed him via email that she was pregnant, and a girl was born in Ukraine later that year. In March 2019, he went to Ukraine with his mother to meet Nina and their daughter. “Eventually, the visits became frequent”, and the couple and their daughter travelled to Costa Rica. Goldstein subsequently returned to Israel for “personal reasons”.

Nina and her daughter returned to India and began staying in Goa in January 2020. Subsequently, he learned Nina was pregnant again, and a second child was born in May 2020. He claimed that he continued to provide the mother and children with “financial support”, but he did not want to travel to India at the time to “avoid verbal abuse” from Nina. In December 2021, he came to India to meet his daughters.

“She had shown no concern towards their formal education… she was totally against sending her children to school or other educational institutions, and whenever asked, she would say that she doesn’t believe in formal education,” he claimed.

He claimed that as he made frequent visits to Goa, she “started avoiding” him and had been keeping his daughters away from him, and “would disappear without informing for days”.

“I tried to approach her and our daughters and made multiple attempts, but she never permitted me to meet them,” he said.

In October 2024, Nina’s elder son, from a previous relationship, died in an accident, he told police in his complaint. Since she was struggling with finances, he offered financial help and booked a room for her and their children in a hotel in Panaji. He claimed that when he went to the hotel, she restrained him from meeting his daughters for a majority of the time and continued to “brainwash” them to stay away from him.

Goldstein left for Nepal on November 6, 2024, to renew his visa, and when he returned to India on November 22, she was missing. “I tried calling her on her number, but received no response.” In the complaint, he said that he came to know that Nina had taken their daughters to Gokarna in Karnataka without informing him.

“I am concerned for the health and emotional well-being of my daughters. They are not in school and spend all their time with their mother and her few friends, and not in the company of children of their age. They are not allowed to socialise and are kept in a closed group… I want to be a part of my daughters’ lives and provide for them financially and emotionally… I am filing this missing complaint to know about the exact whereabouts, location and condition of my minor daughters,” he claimed in the complaint.

A police official, requesting anonymity, said a missing complaint was received at the Panaji police station. “The complainant was subsequently summoned to verify certain facts in the complaint, but he did not show up,” the official said.