For Making a Charitable Donation, 12 Years a Slave

Earlier this summer I told you that Russia arrested and charged a woman holding dual US/Russian citizenship with treason for making a $50 donation to Razom, a U.S. Friends of Ukraine organization.  Here is a sad update:

A Russian court sentenced a dual U.S.-Russian national to 12 years in a penal colony, after finding her guilty of treason for donating funds to aid the Ukrainian army at the start of the war.  Ksenia Karelina, 32, who lived in Los Angeles and worked as an aesthetician at a Beverly Hills spa, was detained in February while on a visit to family in Yekaterinburg, some 900 miles east of Moscow. Russia’s Federal Security Service alleged she had taken part in unspecified “public actions” in the U.S. in support of Kyiv and separately accused her of collecting funds for a Ukrainian organization that were used to buy military supplies. A website set up by Karelina’s supporters calling for her release says she made a $51.80 donation “to a US-based nonprofit that helps children and elderly who have been impacted by the war in Ukraine. It has nothing to do with supporting the military.”

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darryll k. jones