Ksenia Karelina, a dual citizen of the United States and Russia arrested in January while visiting relatives in Yekaterinburg, reportedly pleaded guilty to “treason” in a Russian courtroom on Thursday.
Karelina’s “crime” was donating $51 to a U.S.-based humanitarian charity for Ukrainian victims of the Russian invasion.
Karelina, a 32-year-old resident of Los Angeles, moved to the United States in 2012 and became a citizen in 2021. She traveled to Russia to visit her parents and younger sister in Yekaterinburg in January, using a ticket purchased for her as a gift by her boyfriend. She reportedly assured him the trip would be safe and he had no reason to worry.
While she was in Russia, Karelina was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB, on charges of “petty hooliganism” for using foul language at an airport. The FSB proceeded to search her smartphone and found a record of her charitable donation to Razom for Ukraine, a humanitarian group based in New York. The exact amount of her donation was $51.80.
Russian prosecutors accused the ballerina of “proactively transferring funds to a Ukrainian organization, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition.”
The small size of her donation and the humanitarian nature of the charity were deemed irrelevant, and Russia does not recognize dual citizenship, so Karelina was treated as a Russian citizen, charged with treason, and threatened with twenty years in prison.
The Russian government rebuffed efforts from Karelina’s family, American officials, and human rights organizations to secure her freedom. A Russian judge denied her appeal and request to be moved to house arrest in March. The U.S. State Department complained that it was denied consular access to the prisoner.
Karelina wrote a letter to her boyfriend, Chris Van Hardeen, in March describing the harsh conditions of her imprisonment in Siberia. She said she was forced to sleep with the lights on and was only allowed to shower once a week. She reported the guards had a habit of locking her outside in freezing cold weather for hours when she went to the roof of the jail for a breath of fresh air.
“It’s a day-by day thing. One day she wakes up very hopeful and very positive, and then other days there is no hope,” Hardeen said, relaying Karelina’s fears that she would spend the rest of her life in a Russian prison.
Karelina was marched into a closed-door Russian trial on Wednesday, where she pled guilty to the charges against her. The charges carry a sentence of 12 years to life. Russian prosecutors have indicated they seek a 15-year sentence for Karelina. Her lawyers argued such a sentence would be excessive because she has fully cooperated with investigators.
Karelina was not included in the prisoner swap deal last week that freed captive journalist Evan Gershkovich, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, and several other hostages in exchange for a group of hardened Russian criminals and a convicted assassin.
The Russians rarely agree to trade their hostages until they have been convicted of serious offenses and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, as was the case with Gershkovich, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison in a rushed closed-door trial in July.
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