MOSCOW – The trial of a Russian-American dual citizen who Russia accuses of treason began on Thursday amid rising tensions between Washington and Moscow, which included the arrest of two American journalists.
The trial is being held behind closed doors in Yekaterinburg, in the same court that next week will begin hearing the case of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who was arrested in March 2023 and accused of espionage.
The defendant was identified by Russian authorities as Ksenia Karelina, a resident of Los Angeles, although the North American media often uses the surname Khavana, her ex-husband’s surname.
Karelina was born in Yekaterinburg and was arrested in February while visiting family.
Russia’s main internal security agency, the Federal Security Service, accuses Karelina of raising money for a Ukrainian organization that provided weapons, ammunition and other supplies to the Ukrainian military. Her boyfriend said she made a single donation of about $50 to a Ukrainian organization, according to media reports.
Karelina faces a sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted. Almost all Russian criminal cases that come to court end in convictions.
Gershkovich, the highest-profile American behind bars in Russia, is accused of collecting secret information from a tank factory in the Yekaterinburg region. His employers deny the accusation and the US State Department declared him unjustly detained.
Gershkovich’s trial, also over, will begin on Wednesday.
A journalist for the US-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, with dual US and Russian citizenship, has been detained since October on charges of collecting military intelligence and failing to register as a foreign agent.
Since sending troops to Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has harshly cracked down on dissent and passed laws that criminalize criticism of the operation in Ukraine and remarks deemed to discredit the Russian military. Since then, concerns have grown that Russia could target U.S. citizens for detention.
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