Russian Court Denies Appeal of U.S. Citizen Sentenced to 12 Years for Donating $51 to Pro-Ukraine Charity
A Russian court on Monday denied relief to a U.S. citizen serving 12 years in a penal colony for treason in connection with a $51.80 donation she made, while in the U.S., to a pro-Ukraine charity.
Ksenia Karelina, who is also a Russian citizen, was arrested in January during a trip to visit her 90-year-old grandmother and other family members in Yekaterinburg, Russia. She immigrated to the U.S. in 2012 and became a citizen in 2021.
Trouble for Karelina, 33, began shortly after landing in Russia, where the Federal Security Service (FSB) flagged her after learning she had a U.S. passport. The agency interrogated her, took her cell phone—on which the FSB discovered her 2022 donation to Razom, a charity dedicated to “actively contributing to the establishment of a secure, prosperous, and democratic Ukraine”—and ultimately arrested her for “petty hooliganism,” which was later ratcheted up to treason. Her prosecution is part of a larger Russian crackdown on alleged treason that is unprecedented even by the country’s illiberal standards.Â
Following a closed-door trial, Russian Judge Andrei Mineev handed down the 12-year sentence on August 15. Mineev is the same jurist who oversaw the case of Evan Gershkovich, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal who was detained in Russia in March 2023 and who received a 16-year sentence as part of a bogus espionage case.
Karelina’s punishment was imposed shortly after the execution of the large U.S.-Russia prisoner swap, which included Gershkovich; Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested in December 2018 and also convicted of espionage; Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist for Radio Free Europe who was detained in October 2023 and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent; and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a permanent U.S. resident who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for treason in connection with his unflinching criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government.
But Karelina was not so lucky. Chris van Heerden, her boyfriend, said he has urged the federal government to classify Kareli
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