{"id":29935,"date":"2025-07-03T22:08:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T22:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=29935"},"modified":"2025-07-03T22:08:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T22:08:05","slug":"us-ballerina-freed-from-12-year-russian-jail-sentence-speaks-out-about-trauma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/?p=29935","title":{"rendered":"US ballerina freed from 12-year Russian jail sentence speaks out about trauma"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A former ballerina who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Russia has spoken out about her ‘hard’ experience before being freed in a prisoner exchange with the US. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Ksenia Karelina, a US<\/a>-Russian citizen, was arrested in Yekaterinburg, in southwestern Russia<\/a>, in February 2023 after being accused of treason.<\/p>\n

Investigators searched her phone and found that in February 2022, she had made a donation to a charity that provides aid to Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The donation took place on the first day Vladimir Putin<\/a> launched his invasion on the neighboring country. The former ballerina admitted to the charge in a closed trial and was sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, however, she was able to return to the US a little over a year after her arrest through a prisoner swap, which saw her land in Maryland in April.<\/p>\n

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\"Karelina<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Karelina was ordered to spend time in a penal colony (ROBERTO SCHMIDT\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/cite><\/div>\n

A few weeks on, Karelina has now opened up about her experience in a new interview<\/a> with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old spoke about how the arrest and imprisonment ‘took a lot’ from her both mentally<\/a> and physically, but she expressed belief that it ‘gave [her] a lot too’.<\/p>\n

She admitted the ordeal ‘changed [her] life’, and is now focusing on the positive things she can take away from it.<\/p>\n

“I feel like I just get stronger in my values and believing in kindness and love,” she said. “I strongly believe that this is what is going to help the world to get better. [Love and kindness] is what is going to drag you through the darkest places, darkest times of your life.”<\/p>\n

Throughout her time at the penal colony, which is a settlement intended to separate prisoners from the general population, such as an island, Karelina credited her boyfriend<\/a> Chris Van Heerden as her ‘biggest supporter’.<\/p>\n

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\"Ksenia<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ksenia said the experience was ‘hard’ (NewsNation)<\/cite><\/div>\n

“He helped me so much through all this and keep the smile on my face,” she said.<\/p>\n

Van Heerden advocated for Karelina’s release and greeted her when she arrived back in Maryland in April, having described her ordeal as a ‘nightmare’.<\/p>\n

In the new interview, he told Cuomo that ‘love wins no matter what’.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe everyone would have done what I did if they were in my position,” he said. “I also don\u2019t want people to forget what she\u2019s been through, she is so strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karelina added: \u201cThanks to Chris, I have the ability to take things slow, but I would really love to help people get through dark places because it was hard, I went through that, and I now know some tools to get through hard things.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Featured Image Credit: Getty Images\/ROBERTO SCHMIDT<\/cite><\/p>\n

Topics:\u00a0Russia<\/a>, US News<\/a>, Crime<\/a>, Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A former ballerina who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Russia has spoken out about her ‘hard’ experience before being freed in a prisoner exchange with the US. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29938,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935\/revisions\/29938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}