Moscow imprisons Russian-American over charitable donation to Ukraine

A Russian court sentenced a dual Russian-American citizen, Ksenia Karelina, to 12 years in prison on Thursday after finding her guilty of treason for donating money to a charity supporting Ukraine.

The Los Angeles resident, a spa worker, pleaded guilty at her closed trial in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where her case was heard by the same court and judge that convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage in July.

The court said investigators found that on Feb. 24, 2022 - the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine - Karelina had "transferred funds in the interests of a Ukrainian organization, which were subsequently used for the purchase of tactical medicine items, equipment, means of defeat and ammunition by the Armed Forces of Ukraine."

Her supporters say she had donated $51.80 to Razom for Ukraine, a New York-based charity that provides humanitarian aid to children and elderly people in Ukraine. The charity has denied it provides any military support to Kyiv.

Karelina, 33, appeared in court on Thursday in a white sweatshirt and blue jeans, sitting calmly in a glass courtroom cage.

She was not included in a major prisoner swap between Russia and the West two weeks ago that freed Gershkovich and 15 others from Russian and Belarusian jails in exchange for eight prisoners held in the West.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom on Thursday, Karelina's lawyer Mikhail Mushailov said he was working to include her in a future exchange.

"We will certainly perform legally-significant actions to start the exchange procedure and finalize it as soon as possible," he said, adding that Karelina planned to appeal.

Mushailov said that while Karelina admitted she had donated the money, she "did not envision that the funds that she transferred would be used for these anti-Russian activities."

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Moscow said Washington takes seriously its commitment to its citizens abroad, and declined further comment.

 Interrogations at the airport

Evgeniy Smirnov, a lawyer specializing in cases of treason and espionage in Russia but who was not involved in Karelina's case, said she was unlikely to receive a lesser punishment.

"A punishment lower than the lowest (sentence) has rarely been applied recently, and, as a rule, a guilty plea is not enough (to reduce a sentence)," Smirnov told Reuters.

Karelina was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States in 2012 via a work-study program, receiving American citizenship in 2021. She was arrested by the FSB security service after flying to Russia to visit her family in Yekaterinburg at the start of the year.

Problems began immediately for Karelina on her arrival in Russia when authorities learned she had a US passport. Officers interrogated her and took her cellphone on which they found the 2022 donation to the charity, Razom, on her Venmo account, according to the website www.freeksenia.com.

The FSB interrogated her for up to two hours during mandatory weekly check-ins and banned her from leaving the city, the website says.

Three days before she was due to return to Los Angeles, Karelina was arrested on a hooliganism charge and jailed for 15 days.

Just before her release, she was slapped with a state treason charge. Acquittals for serious crimes are nearly unheard of in Russia.

Karelina's family and friends in the US have described her as someone who didn't much care for politics and said they were shocked by her arrest.

Her boyfriend, Christopher van Heerden, told Reuters this month that he has been in contact with both the State Department and the US embassy in Moscow about securing her release.

Unlike in the cases of Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan, who was also freed in the swap this month, Karelina has not been designated by Washington as "wrongfully detained," a label that would open up diplomatic avenues to negotiate a prisoner exchange.