Ksenia Karelina, Imprisoned in Russia for Donating $51 to a Pro-Ukraine Charity, Is Freed

An American citizen detained in Russia was released on Thursday in an early morning prisoner exchange.

Russian authorities arrested Ksenia Karelina, who lives in Los Angeles, in early 2024 during a visit to see her 90-year-old grandmother and other family members. Law enforcement flagged her at the airport after noting she had a U.S. passport and searched her phone, where they found a $51.80 donation she made to Razom, a pro-Ukraine charity, in 2022 while she was in the States.

Karelina was initially arrested for “petty hooliganism.” The government then raised the charge to treason, for which she received a 12-year sentence following a closed-door trial. Born in Yekaterinburg, Russia, she immigrated to the U.S. in 2012 and became a citizen in 2021.

“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement posted on X. “She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans.”

Chris van Heerden, her partner, said last year that Karelina wrote to him describing her life pre-trial in prison, where she was only permitted to shower once a week and was forced to sleep with the lights on. She was permitted to go to the roof for fresh air, she added, but eventually stopped doing so, as the guards would lock the door and leave the prisoners in the cold for hours. “I am overjoyed to hear that the love of my life, Ksenia Karelina is on her way home from wrongful detention in Russia,” he said in a statement. “She has endured a nightmare for 15 months and I cannot wait to hold her.”

Karelina was released in exchange for Arthur Petrov, a German-Russian citizen who was arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 and extradited to the U.S. for allegedly smuggling sensitive microelectronics with military applications to Russia.

Karelina’s release comes two months after the Trump administration orchestrated a prisoner exchange for Marc Fogel, an American teacher who was arrested in Russia in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony after he was found with 0.6 ounces of medical marijuana. And in August, former President Joe Biden’s administration executed an elaborate prisoner swap that saw more than a dozen people released by Russia—including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, journalist and dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan—in exchange for Russians jailed in the U.S. and Europe.

Still stuck in Russian custody is American Stephen Hubbard, who was sentenced to almost seven years in prison in October after he was convicted of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. Hubbard, an English teacher, had been living in Izium, Ukraine, when he was arrested after Russia overtook the town. The charges are a bit beyond belief, considering that he is now 73 years old.

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