Russian-American woman goes on trial for treason after donating funds to Ukraine

20/6/2024 17:33

        A Russian-American woman arrested earlier this year while visiting family in Russia went on trial for alleged treason on Thursday after authorities accused her of raising money to send to the Ukrainian army.
        
        Ksenia Karelina, who was born in Russia but had built a new life as an aesthetician at a Los Angeles spa after immigrating to the United States over a decade ago, faces a sentence of 12 years to life in prison if found guilty.
        
        Her trial will be held behind closed doors, as is customary in such cases in Russia. Treason acquittals are rare there.
        
        The court in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg published a short video of Karelina sitting in a glass cage, wearing jeans and a green plaid shirt. She smiled faintly as reporters snapped photographs.
        
        At least a dozen Americans are currently jailed in Russia, part of a growing list of foreign nationals who have found themselves caught up in the crisis of 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 young sister in Yekaterinburg.