The Trump Administration has reportedly secured the release of another American being held prisoner in Russia.
On Thursday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the release of American ballerina Ksenia Karelina.
Moscow released Karelina in exchange for German-Russian citizen Arthur Petrov, who was arrested in 2023 in Cyprus at the request of the U.S. on charges of exporting sensitive microelectronics, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“American Ksenia Karelina is on a plane back home to the United States. She was wrongfully detained by Russia for over a year and President Trump secured her release. @POTUS will continue to work for the release of ALL Americans,” Rubio wrote on X.
Karelina was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to treason for donating $51.80 to a Ukrainian charity in early 2024.
She was initially detained for “petty hooliganism” while visiting family in Russia in February 2024, but the charge was later upgraded to treason after accusations that she was acting as an American spy.
Russian authorities claimed that Karelina, who lived in Los Angeles, raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in “public actions” that supported Ukraine while in the U.S.
Her boyfriend, boxer Chis Van Deerden, told Fox News Digital last year that she was “proud to be Russian, and she doesn’t watch the news. She doesn’t intervene with anything about the war.”
She is the latest American prisoner detained in another country to be freed under President Donald Trump’s administration. In February, Trump brought American history teacher Marc Fogel, who had been detained in Russia since 2021, back to the U.S.
In March, the Taliban agreed to release American prisoner Faye Hall after President Donald Trump removed multimillion-dollar bounties on senior members of the militant group, according to a report by the Telegraph.
The White House shared a video on X of Hall thanking the president.
“I’m glad you’re the President, and thank you for bringing me home,” Hall said. “I have never been so proud to be an American citizen. Thank you, Mr. President.”
In a response posted to Truth Social, Trump wrote, “Thank you Faye — So honored with your words!”
