LA ballerina faces 15 years in prison for donating $51 to Ukraine

FILE – Ksenia Karelina, also known by the last name of Khavana, sits in a defendant’s cage in a court in Yekaterinburg, Russia, on Thursday, June 20, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles ballerina and aesthetician is facing a potential 15-year prison sentence in Russia Thursday after pleading guilty to a treason charge.

Ksenia Karelina, who worked as a manager at Ciel Spa Beverly Hills at the SLS Hotel, was arrested in Russia in February and accused of providing financial support to Ukraine.

Various media reports indicated that she donated a total of about $51 to a Ukrainian human-rights organization in February 2022, on the same day Russia invaded Ukraine.

Karelina, a Russian who obtained US citizenship in 2021 when she married an American, was detained in Yekaterinburg where she had traveled to visit family.

The Russian Federal Security Service alleged at the time that she “was involved in providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of our country.”

“Since February 2022, she has proactively collected funds in the interests of one the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” according to the Federal Security Service. “In addition to the United States, this citizen repeatedly took part in public actions in support of the Kyiv regime.”

A ballet dancer, Khavana’s social media pages indicate she received her dance training at the S.P. Diaghilev school in Yekaterinburg in Russia, graduated from Ural Federal University then began dancing in Baltimore in 2014.

Her attorney, Mikhail Mushailov, told reporters in Russia Thursday that Karelina had fully cooperated with investigators, and the prosecution request for a 15-year prison term is particularly harsh.

Karelina wasn’t included in a recent prisoner exchange that included the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who had also been arrested in Yekaterinburg. Karelina’s lawyer said she wasn’t eligible to be included in the prisoner exchange because a final judgment in her case had not yet been reached. (CNS)