A court in Russia has sentenced a dual Russian-American citizen to 12 years in prison for treason after she was convicted of sending money to support the Ukrainian military.
Ksenia Karelina’s defense lawyer said she made a single donation worth about 50 dollars. He said he plans to appeal the ruling.
Multiple Russian media outlets reported that the court in Yekaterinburg, central Russia, sentenced Karelina to imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 rubles, or about 3,300 dollars, on Thursday.
They also reported that investigators found that she sent money for the Ukrainian military to buy ammunition and other supplies.
But Reuters news agency reported that Karelina had donated the money to a charity which provides humanitarian aid to children and elderly people in Ukraine, not to the Ukrainian military.
Her lawyer also expressed his intention to seek to have her included in a future prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States.