Russia has released Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian national who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason in August last year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a social media post early Thursday, offering no information about the terms of her release. The Wall Street Journal first reported Karelina’s release, saying she was freed in a prisoner swap orchestrated by the two countries’ intelligence agencies.
“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States,” Rubio said in the post. “She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release.”
The Journal quoted CIA Director John Ratcliffe as saying in a statement to the newspaper that “President Trump brought home another wrongfully detained American from Russia” and lauding “the CIA officers who worked tirelessly to support this effort.”
The swap, according to the Journal, was carried out in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and negotiated by Ratcliffe and an unnamed senior Russian intelligence official — top level communication that indicates a deepening of efforts by the Trump administration to improve ties with Moscow. Mr. Trump has been pushing both Russia and Ukraine to negotiate a peace agreement to end the three-year war sparked by Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
In exchange for Karelina, a ballet dancer who lived in California, the Journal said the U.S. government had freed Arthur Petrov, a German-Russian national arrested in Cyprus 2023 at the request of U.S. authorities. He was being held on allegations of exporting sensitive microelectronics.
Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason. She was arrested while on visit to Russia for donating about $51 to an American-based humanitarian group that was helping Ukrainians impacted by the war, according to Russian state media.
Her lawyers said she acknowledged transferring the funds, though she did not admit she intentionally directed them to organizations that might have used the money for actions against Russia. She didn’t expect that her donation would end up supporting anti-Russian activities, according to her lawyers.
Karelina’s boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, told CBS News last year that she had made the small donation in 2022, “exercising her First Amendment rights,” adding that “she has done nothing wrong.”
Van Heerden said he was uneasy about Karelina’s decision to return to Russia last year, given the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. But he said she “had no worry in the world,” assuring him it would be safe since she was entering the country as a dual American-Russian citizen.
“She wanted to go home. She made it very clear that she wanted to go home,” Van Heerden told King.
Ksenia was confident there was no danger, especially since she didn’t follow the news closely, and Van Heerden admitted he didn’t, either. Wanting to fulfill her wish to visit home, he bought her a plane ticket as a birthday gift in December. The pair traveled to Istanbul for New Year’s. He was going to travel with her to Russia from there, but he didn’t feel comfortable. So, she traveled alone to Russia and he returned home to Los Angeles.
