Ksenia Karelina, a dual Russian-American national, is pleading guilty to a treason case in Russia, her lawyer told state news agency TASS on Wednesday (7).
TASS quoted Karelina’s lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, as saying that his client admits the charge. The next hearing is scheduled for August 8, TASS reported.
Karelina, 33, was detained in Yekaterinburg earlier this year while visiting her grandparents. She is accused of donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in the United States, according to her employer, for a spa in Beverly Hills, California.
Karelina is an amateur ballerina and Los Angeles resident who became a US citizen in 2021. She entered Russia in January, but the US only learned of her arrest on February 8.
Chris Van Heerden, Karelina’s boyfriend, told CNN who bought her a ticket to visit the country as a birthday present. He said she was “proud to be Russian and doesn’t watch the news. She doesn’t intervene in the war at all.”
“I believe America will bring her back to me,” Van Heerden said.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) accused Karelina of participating in “public actions to support the Kiev regime.”
The organization to which Karelina allegedly gave money, the New York-based nonprofit Razom for Ukraine, said it was “shocked” by her arrest.
Source: CNN Brasil
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