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US-Russian citizen released in Moscow-Washington prisoner swap
Ksenia Karelina was convicted of treason on charges stemming from a donation of about US$52 to a charity aiding Ukraine
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A US-Russian dual national imprisoned in Russia on treason charges was freed on Thursday in exchange for a Russian man jailed on smuggling charges in the US, a prisoner swap that comes as Moscow and Washington have made efforts to repair ties.
Ksenia Karelina, also identified in the media as Ksenia Khavana, is “on a plane back home to the United States”, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X. She was arrested in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg in February 2024 and convicted of treason later that year on charges stemming from a donation of about US$52 to a charity aiding Ukraine.
The US authorities have called the case against her “absolutely ludicrous”.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the country’s main security and counter-espionage agency, said that dual Russian-German citizen Arthur Petrov was released as part of a swap. Petrov was arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 at the request of the US on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia and extradited to the US a year later.
Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine. Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the United States carried out in the last three years – and the second since President Donald Trump took office less than three months ago and reversed Washington’s policy of isolating Russia in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.
Russian and US diplomats are sitting down on Thursday for another round of talks in Istanbul on improving diplomatic ties.
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