MOSCOW – A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in prison for treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine. Karelina, who has dual American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a closed-door trial.
She lived in Los Angeles and became a U.S. citizen in 2021. She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,000 miles east of Moscow. Prosecutors had demanded a 15-year prison sentence. The Yekaterinburg court found her guilty of treason and sentenced her to a term in a general regime penal colony. Karelina had been accused by Russia’s FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organization that supplies the Ukrainian military with weapons. Russian human rights activists said that while she was living in the U.S., she made a single transfer of $51.80 on the first day of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022. The FSB reportedly discovered the transaction on her phone. Her lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said Karelina merely admitted to transferring the money and believed the funds would help victims on both sides. He told Russian media that she would appeal the verdict.
The aid group Razom for Ukraine said earlier this year it was “horrified” by the amateur ballerina’s arrest and denied raising money for weapons or ammunition, saying it was a US-founded aid group focused on humanitarian and disaster relief. Karelina faced the same court in June as Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was jailed for espionage but was released earlier this month as part of a major prisoner swap with the US and other Western countries. The Yekaterinburg cases were heard by the same judge, Andrei Mineev.
Ksenia Karelina’s boyfriend, boxer Chris van Heerden, said on Thursday he was very angry with the US State Department. “I woke up this morning to the news. I’m still sitting here processing what’s happening,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s media partner. “Two weeks ago there was a prisoner exchange and Ksenia was not on that list,” he said, adding that he had been pushing for her to be sent home for the past eight months.
“Ksenia should be home and I’m angry and trying to keep my composure.” In an interview with the BBC’s Newshour, Van Heerden said he believed Karelina should never have returned to Russia earlier this year. “My question now is: can we get Ksenia declared ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ today so that she’s included in the next prisoner exchange?” When the US declares a person ‘wrongfully imprisoned’, it means it considers that person a political hostage and negotiations are essential to secure their release.
He added: “To my surprise, there were two people in the prisoner exchange who were not declared ‘wrongfully imprisoned’ and were released – so why is Ksenia not at home?”
Since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have cracked down on dissidents. According to human rights groups, more than 1,000 criminal cases have been initiated against dissidents critical of the war.
