Russia sentences American woman to 12 years for Ukraine donation treason

Ksenia Karelina, a dual passport holder and a beautician living in Los Angeles, was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service in February during a trip home to Yekaterinburg to visit family.

A Russian court has sentenced Russian American Ksenia Karelina to 12 years for treason, in a closed court case, weeks after the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

Karelina, a dual passport holder and a beautician living in Los Angeles, was arrested by Russia’s Federal Security Service in February during a trip home to Yekaterinburg to visit family.

Karelina’s sentencing, weeks after the prisoner exchange, underscored the risks of travel to Russia after US officials warned of a sharp rise in hostage diplomacy: the practice of arresting foreign citizens for political leverage or use in prisoner exchanges.

Russia swapped 16 prisoners, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Washington Post contributing columnist Vladimir Kara-Murza and other prominent political prisoners, and several German citizens, in return for 10 Russian intelligence agents, undercover spies and their two children, hackers, and Vadim Krasikov, a convicted assassin associated with an elite unit of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The chances of a similar sweeping prisoner exchange in the future appear unlikely, given the rarity of such events, but US President Joe Biden has vowed to seek the freedom of other Americans being held, including schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who is serving a 14-year sentence after being convicted of drug charges, in a case strikingly similar to that of WNBA star Brittney Griner.

Griner was convicted in 2022 of drug smuggling and exchanged in December that year for a notorious Russian arms dealer, Victor Bout.

Karelina was charged with sending aid to help Ukraine’s war effort, after investigators examined her phone and found evidence of a donation of just over $50 (NZ$85) to a Ukrainian humanitarian agency.

The initial FSB statement of arrest accused her of “providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of our country”. The money was used to “purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” according to the FSB.

Karelina’s name from her former marriage is Khavana; she now goes by Karelina. Her support page, freeksenia.com, says that Karelina was charged after FSB officers searched her Venmo account and found a $51.80 donation to a US-based nonprofit that helps children and elderly impacted by the war in Ukraine.

“It has nothing to do with supporting the military,” the page says.

Interfax reported that Karelina pleaded guilty to the charges, and that the FSB had accused her of “numerous actions” in support of Ukraine’s military.

She faced a closed trial in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg – the same court that last month convicted Gershkovich and sentenced him to a 16-year jail term, before his release in this month’s exchange.

After the judge handed down Karelina’s sentence of 12 years in a general-security prison, her lawyer said he would seek to include her in a future exchange, Interfax reported.

Karelina’s sentencing comes the same week that an American citizen, Joseph Tater, born in 1978, was arrested in Moscow and remanded to custody for 15 days on accusations of assaulting police.

Tater was arrested on Monday after an argument with hotel reception staff, and he reportedly cursed at staff who called the police.

On Wednesday, he was given an administrative penalty of 15 days for disorderly conduct, but Russia’s Investigative Committee said it would open a criminal case against him for the more serious charge of assaulting police.

Interfax reported that a law enforcement official said Tater had tried to check into a Moscow hotel but was denied a room because he did not produce a migration card, as required in Russia. Police were called after he behaved aggressively and uttered obscenities in both Russian and English, according to Interfax and other Russian media.

Later at a police station, he struck a police officer on the arm and pushed her, Interfax reported.

Many other Americans are in prison in Russia, including Gordon Black, a US soldier jailed last month for nearly four years after being convicted of theft and threatening to kill his Russian girlfriend.