Russia holds L.A. resident, a dual citizen, on treason charges

Ksenia Karelina poses in a wedding photo.

Feb. 20, 2024 Updated 6:11 PM PT

Ksenia Karelina left Los Angeles around the New Year on a flight to Moscow via Istanbul. She was excited to see her younger sister, parents and grandmother in Yekaterinburg, the city east of the Ural Mountains in Russia that she departed more than a decade ago to start a new life in America.

Now the 33-year-old spa aesthetician and amateur ballerina, a dual citizen of Russia and the United States, is behind bars in Russia on treason charges, with loved ones fearing for her fate and U.S. officials warning that the country has become too dangerous for any American to remain.

Word of her arrest came from the main Russian security agency, and the treason charges stemmed from an apparent donation to a New York-based Ukrainian charity that aids Ukraine’s military, which for nearly two years has been fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Eleonora Srebroski said she was worried Karelina, her former daughter-in-law, would not make it out of Russia, where repression under President Vladimir Putin has grown harsher since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“I don’t have hope for Russian justice. It does not exist. But here, we live in a powerful country, and we can make noise and attract attention,” she said, speaking from near Baltimore. “I just hope she does not spend the rest of her life in jail.... I know in Russia she will be physically abused, mentally abused, and I’m very concerned.”

The case, the latest detention involving an American citizen in Russia, drew a sharp warning from the White House that U.S. nationals should not remain in the country. Spokesman John F. Kirby told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration was attempting to learn more about the arrest and the circumstances surrounding it.

The State Department said no consular access had yet been granted, and spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that dual nationals such as the arrested woman are in effect treated as Russian citizens for legal purposes.

Experts have said Russian authorities can target Americans as potential bargaining chips for possible use in prisoner swaps, such as the one in which U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was freed in late 2022. That exchange involved a Russian arms dealer named Viktor Bout.

Kirby said Tuesday that U.S. nationals in Russia were in active danger.

“I want to reiterate our very strong warnings about the danger posed to U.S. citizens inside Russia,” he said. “So if you’re a U.S. citizen, including a dual national residing in or traveling in Russia, you ought to leave right now.”

News of the Los Angeles woman’s arrest comes at a time when the authoritarian nature of the Russian state is causing deep alarm in Western capitals. Last week, Russian authorities announced that Putin’s most vocal critic, opposition figure Alexei Navalny, had died in a remote Arctic penal colony. President Biden, along with human rights groups and European leaders, blamed Putin’s regime.

A statement from Russia’s Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, did not identify the detained Los Angeles woman by name, but a group of Russian lawyers that tracks such cases identified her as Ksenia Khavana, her married name. Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, identified her by her maiden name, which she used on her social media accounts.

The FSB said in a statement that she was accused of “proactively collecting funds in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organizations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine items, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

The Russian lawyers group known as Perviy Otdel, or First Department, said she was accused of sending a donation of just over $50 to the group Razom for Ukraine, or Together for Ukraine. It pointed out that such donations could be tracked by bank records that could easily be recovered from a person’s phone during a border crossing or other checks by authorities.

Two women, one holding a bouquet of flowers, pose for a photo in a hallway

“We recommend deleting the history of money transfers to foreign accounts from banking applications, including foreign banks,” the group wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

In a statement, Razom said its leaders were “appalled” that Karelina reportedly faced charges for giving money to the group, which focuses on “humanitarian aid, disaster relief, education and advocacy” in support of a “prosperous, secure and democratic future for Ukraine.”

Russian authorities said the arrest took place in Yekaterinburg, which is also where Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in March last year.

A video published by the Russian news agency RIA Novosti showed the woman, wearing a puffer jacket and a knit hat pulled down over her eyes, being placed in handcuffs and led into a courtroom.

Karelina moved to the U.S. as part of a program to work and study English in the Baltimore area shortly before getting married in 2013, Srebroski said. Though the marriage to her son, Evgeny Khavana, did not work out, the former couple kept in close touch as the woman moved to Los Angeles in 2015 to start anew with a best friend, Srebroski said.

Her profile on the Russian social media platform VK said she became a U.S. citizen in 2021.

Karelina shared photos on social media of her travels across her adopted country: posing by the Pacific Ocean, dancing on the Brooklyn Bridge and skiing in the Pennsylvania mountains.

“Once you meet her, it’s difficult not to love her,” said Srebroski, who considers her a friend.

Records show Karelina living in an apartment in the Miracle Mile area. A building employee at the five-story complex said he was not authorized to confirm whether she was a resident.

According to her LinkedIn account, Karelina worked as a manager at the Ciel Spa at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. Isabella Koretz, the spa’s owner, said in a statement that she was “devastated” by the news. “To know Ksenia is to love her and this heartbreaking news is so difficult to share but it must be done to spread her story and seek justice. Please help us spread the word and bring Ksenia home!”

Evgeny Khavana, who did not respond to calls from a reporter, did not want to speak to the media, according to his mother, Srebroski.

“But he talked to her all the time. They were in touch regularly while she was in Russia, and he said she had been through extra examinations already upon landing in the airport in Moscow,” said Srebroski, a financial data analyst in the Baltimore area. “Then, he lost touch recently and became worried that something could have happened to her. Now we know what.”

The accusations against Karelina could be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Even as her arrest was announced, an appeal by Gershkovich, the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter, was rejected by a court in Moscow. Gershkovich remains in pretrial detention after having been arrested on an espionage charge, which he and the Journal have vigorously denied.

The Mediazona report said Karelina had been detained in Yekaterinburg on Jan. 28 and initially charged with “hooliganism,” with the far more serious allegations against her leveled later.

In addition to Gershkovich, a dual Russian American citizen, Alsu Kurmasheva, is being held in Russia. An editor with Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe, she was arrested in the fall after traveling from her base in Prague to visit relatives in Russia. She has been accused of failing to register as a foreign agent.

Another high-profile case is that of Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges. He has denied the charges, and the State Department considers him wrongfully detained.

Kaleem reported from Los Angeles, special correspondent Ayres from Kyiv, Ukraine, and King from Washington.