{"id":133225,"date":"2025-04-10T21:07:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T21:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/woman-jailed-over-51-donation-to-ukraine-freed-in-us-russia-prisoner-swap-bbc\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T21:07:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T21:07:05","slug":"woman-jailed-over-51-donation-to-ukraine-freed-in-us-russia-prisoner-swap-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/woman-jailed-over-51-donation-to-ukraine-freed-in-us-russia-prisoner-swap-bbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman jailed over $51 donation to Ukraine freed in US-Russia prisoner swap – BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Russian-American citizen has been released in a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
Amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a Los Angeles resident, had been in prison in Russia for over a year, after being arrested in early 2024 during a family visit in the city of Yekaterinburg.
She was accused by Russia's FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organisation providing arms to the Ukrainian military. She pleaded guilty last August and was sentenced to 12 years in jail.
Russian human rights activists said while living in the US she had made a single transfer of $51 (\u00a339) on the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022.
The charity in question denied raising money for weapons or ammunition, saying it was focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
The FSB is thought to have discovered the transaction on her phone.
In exchange, the US freed Arthur Petrov, a dual German-Russian citizen arrested in Cyprus in 2023. He was accused of illegally exporting microelectronics to Russia for manufacturers working with the Russian military.
Russian TASS news agency said President Vladimir Putin had pardoned Ms Karelina.
The prisoner swap took place in Abu Dhabi in the early hours of Thursday.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed Ms Karelina was "on a plane back home to the United States".
He added she had been "wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year".
"President Trump secured her release. [The President] will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans."
CIA director John Ratcliffe was present at the exchange, the Wall Street Journal said.
Ms Karelina's parents thanked Trump and Putin.
"I guess that deal must have involved them both," her father, Pavel, told the Wall Street Journal. "We are beside ourselves with happiness.
"The first seconds of our chat were all pure emotions, I can't even remember what we were saying, it was like one explosion of happiness."
It is the second prisoner swap between Russia and the US in less than two months.
In February, Russian national Alexander Vinnik – who was imprisoned in a US jail on money laundering charges – was freed in exchange for the release<\/a> of American schoolteacher Marc Fogel.
The exchange comes as Moscow and Washington try to improve their relations.
US and Russian officials met in Istanbul on Thursday to hold another round of talks aimed at restoring some of the embassy operations that were scaled back following the Ukraine invasion.
At least two members of Congress were aboard one of the flights when the minor collision occurred.
It is unclear how many people were on board the helicopter at the time of the crash.
The budget, which now must be merged with the Senate's bill, would cut taxes by about $5 trln.
'Captain Canuck' makes a comeback as a symbol of Canadian 'independence' as Trump takes aim at the country.
The former first lady says people were wrong to make assumptions that the couple were getting a divorce.
Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>The BBC <\/i>is not responsible for the content of external sites.<\/i>\u00a0Read about our approach to external linking.<\/b><\/a>
\u00a0<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Russian-American citizen has been released in a prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington. Amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina, a Los Angeles resident, had been in prison in Russia for over a year, after being arrested in early 2024 during a family visit in the city of Yekaterinburg. She was accused by Russia's FSB security service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}