CNN: U.S.-Russian Citizen Is Arrested in Russia for Donating $51.80 to Ukraine Charity

EXCERPT:

CHANCE: "Well, they're saying they've remanded her in custody until April, and they‘re also putting a bit more detail on what she is suspected of doing. A statement from the FSB, which is the federal security service, said, the old KGB, their press office saying that since February 2022, she proactively collected money in the interests of Ukrainian organizations, which was subsequently used, it says, to purchase medicine, items, equipment, weapons, and ammunition for the armed forces of Ukraine. In addition, in the United States, the FSB says, she took part in public rallies in support of the Kyiv regime, so pro-Ukrainian rallies. Now, this doesn‘t seem like much, but in the context of the environment in Russia right now, where there is deep suspicion to anybody who shows any kind of dissent, this was enough to attract the attention of the Russian security services and to actually now charge her with treason, incredibly serious crime, obviously, in which, if she‘s found guilty, she could face up to 20 years in prison. And so, it really is astonishing that someone like Ksenia Karelina, who is, to my understanding, works in a beauty parlor in Los Angeles, she‘s not an activist, necessarily, or a campaigner in any way, that she should be targeted in this way by the Russian authorities."