Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday.
The former ballerina xenia Karelina was born in Russia, but after moving to the United States more than a decade ago, she built a new life as an aesthetician at the Los Angeles Spa. She was “on a plane back to the US,” and “had been illegally detained by Russia for over a year,” Rubio said in a post on X.
Karelina’s lawyer, Mikhail Mushyrov, confirmed her release in a statement on Instagram. “Two hours ago, she contacted her relatives and took off from Abu Dhabi to the US,” he wrote, adding that she had known about her release since Tuesday.
Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) detained Karelina in January 2024, visiting the parents and sister of Yekaterinbergh in the city. It did not provide further details or evidence of her alleged crime.
At the time, Russian legal group Perviy Otdel said there was information that on February 24, 2022, Karelina had donated a small $51.80 from her US bank account. The spa where she previously worked confirmed this in a Facebook statement.
The Russian FSB had not confirmed the figures, but said that Karelina’s donations were “used to purchase tactical medical supplies, equipment, weapons and ammunition of the Ukrainian military.”
She was sentenced to 12 years in a “high treason” prison in August and “fully admitted” her guilt at the closure trial of Yekaterinberg in southwestern Russia, a court in the Sverdlovsky region said in a news release at the time.
The ruling opposes the background of Russia’s three-year war with Ukraine, during which President Putin’s government robbed him of objections. Perceived criticism of the military is prohibited.
Her release was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. She said she was released in exchange for the release of Arthur Petrov, a double German Russian citizen who was arrested in Cyprus in 2023 at the US request that allegedly exported sensitive microelectronics.
NBC News could not confirm this independently, and Rubio did not mention this in his tweet.
Karelina’s freedom comes almost two months after American teacher Mark Vogel returned to the US after three and a half years in prison for a minor medical marijuana violation.
Vogel had been teaching in Russia before authorities came to pick him up while carrying 17 grams of drugs at Sheremetyevo International Airport near Moscow.
He had been prescribed medical marijuana in the US for Backpain, but the drug was illegal in Russia and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Fogel maintained Russian custody even as US authorities gained freedom for other well-known American detainees, including Wall Street Journal reporters Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan and WNBA Star Brittney Griner.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
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