Ksenia Karelina had left Los Angeles across the New 12 months on a flight to Moscow by way of Istanbul. She was excited to see her youthful sister, dad and mom and grandmother in Yekaterinburg, town east of the Ural Mountains in Russia that she had left greater than a decade in the past to begin a brand new life in America.
Now the 33-year-old spa aesthetician and novice ballerina, a twin citizen of Russia and the USA, is behind bars in Russia on treason costs, with family members fearing for her destiny and U.S. officers warning that the nation has change into too harmful for any American to stay.
Phrase of her arrest got here from the primary Russian safety company, and the treason costs stemmed from an obvious donation to a New York-based Ukrainian charity that aids Ukraine’s army, which for practically two years has been preventing off Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Eleonora Srebroski stated she was anxious Karelina, her former daughter-in-law, wouldn’t make it out of Russia, the place repression beneath President Vladimir Putin has grown harsher because the begin of the warfare in Ukraine.
“I don’t have hope for Russian justice. It doesn’t exist. However right here, we dwell in a robust nation, and we will make noise and appeal to consideration,” she stated, talking close to Baltimore. “I simply hope she doesn’t spend the remainder of her life in jail…. I do know in Russia she might be bodily abused, mentally abused, and I’m very involved.”
The case, the newest detention involving an American citizen in Russia, drew a pointy warning from the White Home that U.S. nationals shouldn’t stay within the nation. Spokesman John Kirby instructed reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration was trying to study extra in regards to the arrest and the circumstances surrounding it.
The State Division stated no consular entry had but been granted, and spokesman Matthew Miller instructed reporters that twin nationals such because the arrested girl are in impact handled as Russian residents for authorized functions.
Specialists have stated Russian authorities can goal Individuals as potential bargaining chips for potential use in prisoner swaps, such because the one wherein U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was freed in late 2022. That alternate concerned a Russian arms seller named Viktor Bout.
Kirby stated Tuesday that U.S. nationals in Russia have been in lively hazard.
“I need to reiterate our very robust warnings in regards to the hazard posed to U.S. residents inside Russia,” he stated. “So should you’re a U.S. citizen, together with a twin nationwide residing in or touring in Russia, you ought to depart proper now.”
Information of the Los Angeles girl’s arrest comes at a time when the authoritarian nature of the Russian state is inflicting deep alarm in Western capitals. Final week, Russian authorities introduced that Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition determine Alexei Navalny, had died in a distant Arctic penal colony. President Biden, together with human rights teams and European leaders, blamed Putin’s regime.
A press release from Russia’s Federal Safety Service, generally known as the FSB, didn’t establish the detained Los Angeles girl by identify, however a gaggle of Russian attorneys that tracks such instances recognized her as Ksenia Khavana, her married identify. Mediazona, an impartial Russian information outlet, recognized her by her maiden identify, which she used on her social media accounts.
The FSB said in a statement that she was accused of “proactively amassing funds within the pursuits of one of many Ukrainian organizations, which have been subsequently used to buy tactical drugs gadgets, gear, weapons and ammunition by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
The Russian attorneys group generally known as Perviy Otdel, or First Division, stated she was accused of sending a donation of simply over $50 to the group Razom for Ukraine, or Collectively for Ukraine. It identified that such donations could possibly be tracked by financial institution information that might simply be recovered from an individual’s telephone throughout a border crossing or different checks by authorities.
“We advocate deleting the historical past of cash transfers to overseas accounts from banking purposes, together with overseas banks,” the group wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Russian authorities stated the arrest came about in Yekaterinburg, which can also be the place Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March final yr.
A video printed by the Russian information company RIA Novosti confirmed the girl, sporting a puffer jacket and a knit hat pulled down over her eyes, being positioned in handcuffs and led right into a courtroom.
Karelina moved to the U.S. as a part of a program to work and research English within the Baltimore space shortly earlier than getting married in 2013, Srebroski stated. Although the wedding to her son, Evgeny Khavana, didn’t work out, the previous couple saved in shut contact as the girl moved to Los Angeles in 2015 to begin anew with a greatest good friend, Srebroski stated.
Her profile on the Russian social media platform VK stated she turned a U.S. citizen in 2021.
Karelina shared photographs on social media of her travels throughout her adopted nation: posing by the Pacific Ocean, dancing on the Brooklyn Bridge and snowboarding within the Pennsylvania mountains.
“When you meet her, it’s troublesome to not love her,” stated Srebroski, who considers her a good friend.
Information present Karelina residing in an residence within the Miracle Mile space. A constructing worker on the five-story advanced stated he was not approved to verify whether or not she was a resident.
In response to her LinkedIn account, Karelina labored as a supervisor on the Ciel Spa on the SLS Lodge in Beverly Hills. Isabella Koretz, the spa’s proprietor, stated in an announcement that she was “devastated” by the information. “To know Ksenia is to like her and this heartbreaking information is so troublesome to share however it have to be carried out to unfold her story and search justice. Please assist us unfold the phrase and convey Ksenia residence!”
Evgeny Khavana, who did not respond to calls from a reporter, did not want to speak to the media, according to his mother, Srebroski.
“But he talked to her all the time. They were in touch regularly while she was in Russia, and he said she had been through extra examinations already upon landing in the airport in Moscow,” said Srebroski, a financial data analyst in the Baltimore area. “Then, he lost touch recently and became worried that something could have happened to her. Now we know what.”
The accusations again Karelina could be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Even as her arrest was announced, an appeal by Gershkovich, the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter, was rejected by a court in Moscow. Gershkovich remains in pretrial detention after having been arrested on an espionage charge, which he and the Journal have vigorously denied.
The Mediazona report said Karelina had been detained in Yekaterinburg on Jan. 28 and initially charged with “hooliganism,” with the far more serious allegations against her leveled later.
In addition to Gershkovich, a dual Russian American citizen, Alsu Kurmacheva, is being held in Russia. An editor with Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe, she was arrested in the fall afer traveling from her base in Prague to visit relatives in Russia. She has been accused of failing to register as a foreign agent.
Another high-profile case is that of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges. He has denied the charges, and the State Department considers him wrongfully detained.
Kaleem reported from Los Angeles, Ayres from Kyiv, Ukraine, and King from Washington.
