Ksenia Karelina: US-Russian woman jailed for 12 years for $51 charity gift

A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in jail for treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Karelina, who has American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

She had been living in Los Angeles and became a US citizen in 2021. She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year jail term. The court in Yekaterinburg found her guilty of high treason and sentenced her to imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

Karelina had been accused by Russia’s FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organisation providing arms to the Ukrainian military.

Russian human rights activists said while living in the US she had made a single transfer of $51.80 on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022. The FSB is thought to have discovered the transaction on her phone.

Her lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said Karelina had only admitted transferring the money and believed the funds would help victims on both sides. He told Russian media she would appeal against the sentence.

The charity, Razom for Ukraine, said earlier this year it was “appalled” to hear of the amateur ballerina’s arrest and denied raising money for weapons or ammunition. It said it was a US-founded charity focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Karelina went on trial in June in the same court as Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was jailed for espionage but freed earlier this month as part of a major prisoner swap with the US and other Western countries.

The cases in Yekaterinburg were heard by the same judge, Andrei Mineev.

Ksenia Karelina’s boyfriend, boxer Chris van Heerden, said on Thursday that he was very angry with the US State Department.

“I woke up to the news this morning. I’m still sitting here processing what’s happening,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s media partner.

“There was a prisoner swap two weeks ago, 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 I’m trying to hold my composure.”

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour, Mr Van Heerden said he felt Karelina should never have gone back to Russia at the start of the year.

“Now my question is, can we get Ksenia declared ‘wrongly detained’ today, so that when the next swap happens, she is part of it?”

If the US declares a person to be “wrongfully detained”, it means it views them as a political hostage and negotiations are vital to securing their freedom.

He added “To my surprise, there were two people [in the prisoner swap] who were not declared ‘wrongly detained’ and they got out – so why is Ksenia not home?”

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s authorities have clamped down on dissent and human rights groups say more than 1,000 criminal cases have been opened against anti-war dissidents.

Last year President Vladimir Putin signed a decree formally increasing the maximum jail term for treason from 20 years to life. A record number of treason cases were opened last year, according to human rights activists.

In July, dual German-Russian teenager Kevin Lik was given four years for treason. He was one of the 16 men and women freed by Russia as part of its prisoner exchange with the West.

When Karelina was first detained, rights group Perviy Otdel said she had been accused of swearing in a public place. But her initial detention for “petty hooliganism” was then extended when the FSB accused her of treason.

She had been working at a hotel spa in Beverly Hills before her arrest and had travelled to Yekaterinburg to see her parents and her elderly grandmother.

Karelina is her maiden name, and she is also known as Ksenia Khavana because she took her ex-husband’s surname.

“I want to break down and cry and yell and lose my head, but I know I have to stay strong – and I need to keep fighting,” Mr Van Heerden told the BBC.

He said he worried about the effect of Karelina’s imprisonment on her health.

“She is a very soft person with a very kind heart and I’m afraid for her. I’m afraid that her kind heart will be stepped on and I know that she is fearful.

I know she wants to break down and cry, but she is pretending to be strong.”

“The fight doesn’t end here,” he added, “the fight is now to get her back on US soil. Our only hope is the US government.”