A Russian-American woman arrested earlier this year while visiting family in Russia and accused by authorities of raising funds to send money to the Ukrainian military was on trial Thursday on suspicion of treason.
Ksenia Karelina, who was born in Russia but moved to the United States more than a decade ago and built a new life as an aesthetician at a Los Angeles spa, could face 12 years to life in prison if convicted.
Her trial will be held behind closed doors, as is customary in such cases in Russia. Treason acquittals are rare in Russia.
A court in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, released a short video of Karelina sitting in a glass cage wearing jeans and a green plaid shirt.
She smiled faintly as reporters took their photographs.
At least 12 Americans are currently jailed in Russia, part of a growing list of foreigners caught up in the crisis in relations between Moscow and Washington during the Ukraine war.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Karelina in January while she was visiting her parents and baby sister in Yekaterinburg.
Her former mother-in-law, Eleonora Srebroski, told Reuters in February that Karelina had received a plane ticket as a gift from her boyfriend to visit home for the New Year.
According to Srebroski, she had assured her boyfriend that Russia was “safe” and that there was no reason for her to fear traveling there.
Initially arrested on minor “misdemeanor” charges, Karelina was later charged with treason.
Srebroski said Karelina had made a small donation to Razom for Ukraine, a New York-based nonprofit that sends non-military aid to Ukraine in the wake of a Russian invasion in 2022.
Karelina, who is in her early 30s, arrived in the United States in 2012 through a work-study program and was briefly married to Srebroski’s son.
Her ex-husband described her as a fun-loving woman who didn’t care much about politics.
Karelina’s social media profiles feature photos of herself and friends at the beach and on trips, but contain no political messages.
One photo, taken in November 2021, shows her wearing a long dress, smiling and waving a small American flag, with the caption “Citizenship.”
