US-Russian woman jailed for 12 years for treason

A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in jail for treason.

According to Report, which cites the BBC, Karelina, who has American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

She had been living in Los Angeles and became a US citizen in 2021. She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year jail term. The court in Yekaterinburg found her guilty of high treason and sentenced her to imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

Karelina had been accused by Russia's FSB security service of raising money for a Ukrainian organization providing arms to the Ukrainian military.

"I will appeal the verdict regarding the court's non-application of Article 64 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which allows for imposing a sentence below the minimum limit prescribed by the article. We will also address the issue of appealing the verdict concerning the disposition of material evidence," Mikhail Mushailov, Karelina's lawyer, told journalists after the hearing.