Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina, who has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than a year, is on her way back to the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed early Thursday.
Moscow released Karelina in exchange for German-Russian citizen Arthur Petrov, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. on charges of exporting sensitive microelectronics, the Wall Street Journal reported.
‘American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,’ Rubio wrote on X.
Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason for donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in early 2024.
She was initially detained for ‘petty hooliganism’ while visiting family in Russia in February 2024, but the charge was later upgraded to treason after accusations that she was acting as an American spy.
Russian authorities claimed that Karelina, who lived in Los Angeles, raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in ‘public actions’ that supported Ukraine while in the U.S.
Her boyfriend, boxer Chis Van Deerden, told Fox News Digital last year that she was ‘proud to be Russian, and she doesn’t watch the news. She doesn’t intervene with anything about the war.’
She was left out of a massive August 2024 prisoner swap that resulted in the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and Alsu Kurmasheva.
Details surrounding Karelina’s arrival on U.S. soil were not immediately released.
She is the latest American prisoner detained in another country to be freed under President Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Trump brought American history teacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, back to the U.S.
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
