The parents of the American dancer Ksenia Karelina thank President Trump after she was released from a Russian criminal colony after an exchange of prisoners with the security service of Vladimir Putin.
Karelina, 34, a dancer born in Russia who worked in a spa in Los Angeles, was arrested in her hometown of Yekaterinburg in February 2024 after she was accused of collecting donations for the Ukrainian army.
“A great thanks from the bottom of my heart to President Trump and President Putin, because I suppose that agreement must have involved them both,” said Karelina’s father, Pavel, director of the 56 -year -old services company, to the Wall Street Journal.
“We are creating our happiness. The first seconds of our pure emotions, I don’t remember what we were saying, it was like an explosion of happiness.”
Karelina was released early Thursday morning as part of an exchange of prisoners of the United States in Abu Dhabi.
Karelina, a double Russian-American citizen, was imprisoned for 12 years last August after a Russian court found her guilty of betrayal.
She donated approximately $ 50 to Razom, a charity organization in New York that supports Ukraine in her war with her biological nation.
The United States has maintained that it was erroneously arrested in February last year while visiting the family, after Vladimir Putin’s security service, the FSB found donations on its phone.
The United States released the German citizen Arthur Petrov in exchange for Karelina.
Petrov was arrested in Cyprus in 2023 for allegedly exporting sensitive American technology.
He was accused of using a Chipriot company to buy microelectronics for alleged fire security systems before sending them to a Russian military provider based in ST Petersburg.
Petrov had not sentenced not with a leg.
The launch of Karelina has acclaimed as a propaganda blow by the Trump administration.
“Today, the United States welcomes the return of the American dancer-Rusa Ksenia Karelina, who was sentenced by a Russian court to a criminal colony for 12 years after the authorities discovered that she had donated to a Ukrainian charity organization in Trump’s charity mike
“President Trump and his administration continue to work 24 hours a day to ensure that Americans detained abroad are returned to their families,” he added.
Adam Boehler, the special employee of the government of President Trump for hostage negotiations, shared a sweet image of Karelina that returned to the United States in a plane containing an American flag, in a position on X.
“Ksenia, a beautiful dancer held for more than a year in Russia, is on our American plane and on the house route!” Boehler wrote. “Thank you Donald Trump! And team A, Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio, John Ratcliffe and Mike Waltz.”