US-Russian woman jailed for 12 years in Russia for treason

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.

The charity, Razom, said it was “appalled” to hear of the amateur ballerina’s arrest.

She 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 countries.

Her boyfriend, boxer Chris van Heerden, said last week that the trial had been upsetting and nerve-wracking.

“I could not for the life of me put myself in her shoes and just even imagine what she is going through,” he said.