A Los Angeles ballerina and aesthetician was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in a Russian prison following her guilty plea to a treason charge stemming from a $51 donation to a charity supporting Ukraine.
Ksenia Karelina, who worked as a manager at Ciel Spa Beverly Hills at the SLS Hotel, was arrested in Russia in February and accused of providing financial support to Ukraine. She pleaded guilty to a treason charge last week.
Karelina had donated about $51 to a New York-based Ukrainian human- rights organization in February 2022, on the same day Russia invaded Ukraine. The charity claims to provide humanitarian aid to seniors and children in Ukraine, but Russian authorities contended the donation helped fund military support to Ukraine.
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Karelina, a Russian who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2021 when she married an American, was originally detained in Yekaterinburg where she had traveled to visit family.
The Russian Federal Security Service alleged at the time that she "was involved in providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of our country."
"Since February 2022, she has proactively collected funds in the interests of one the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces," according to the Federal Security Service. "In addition to the United States, this citizen repeatedly took part in public actions in support of the Kyiv regime."
A ballet dancer, Khavana's social media pages indicate she received her dance training at the S.P. Diaghilev school in Yekaterinburg in Russia, graduated from Ural Federal University then began dancing in Baltimore in 2014.
Her attorney, Mikhail Mushailov, told reporters in Russia last week that Karelina had fully cooperated with investigators.
Karelina wasn't included in a recent prisoner exchange that included the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had also been arrested in Yekaterinburg. Karelina's lawyer said she wasn't eligible to be included in the prisoner exchange because a final judgment in her case had not yet been reached.
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