Dual Russian-US citizen Ksenia Karelina has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after a court in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg found her guilty of donating money to a charity that supports the Ukrainian army.

According to a statement released by the court on Thursday, the 33-year-old, who had pleaded guilty at a closed trial, was also handed an 18-month probation period and a fine of 300,000 Russian rubles ($3,400).

Prosecutors had requested a 15-year sentence for Karelina. They said she made the donation on February 24, 2022, with the money ending up with an organization that purchases equipment and ammunition for the Ukrainian army.   

Karelina’s lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, told RBK that he would appeal the verdict, claiming that the court’s ruling to destroy a mobile phone that was named as physical evidence in the case was “absolutely illegal.” The device belonging to Karelina had been seized and used to prove that she had made the donation.

The attorney had previously told TASS that the defendant hopes to be released as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the US in the future.

The court’s press office provided no details on the amount of money transferred by the defendant, although John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, claimed to CNN that a sentence of 12 years for sending “50 bucks to try to alleviate the suffering of people [in Ukraine]” was “vindictive cruelty.” 

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) first reported in February that a 33-year-old resident of Los Angeles had been detained in Ekaterinburg on suspicions of raising funds for the Ukrainian military. 

According to a local media outlet, Karelina had attended a local Ekaterinburg ballet school and graduated from university in the city, before moving to the US, where she married and received citizenship in 2021.

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