Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national detained on suspicion of treason, attends a court hearing in Yekaterinburg, Russia, June 20, 2024, in this still image taken from video. Press Service of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court/Handout via REUTERS
Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national detained on suspicion of treason, attends a court hearing in Yekaterinburg, Russia, June 20, 2024, in this still image taken from video. Press Service of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court/Handout via REUTERS
A portrait of Ksenia Karelina (top centre) with her former in-laws and ex-husband in Maryland, U.S, December 13, 2015. Eleonora Srebroski /Handout via REUTERS
LONDON, 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.
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.
A notice on the website of the court posted later on Thursday said the trial had been adjourned until Aug. 7. It did not state a reason.
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.
Her former mother-in-law, Eleonora Srebroski, told Reuters in February that Karelina had travelled home around the New Year after her boyfriend surprised her with a plane ticket.
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