Trump to meet with American ballerina freed from Russian prison

Fox News

05-05-2025

President Donald Trump will host an American Russian ballerina at the White House on Monday, roughly a month after the Trump administration secured her release from a Russian prison, Fox News Digital has learned.
Ksenia Karelina, a former ballerina, was sentenced to 12 years in a Russian penal colony in 2024 for treason. The 33-year-old was released and returned to the U.S. on April 10 through a U.S.-Russian prison swap, Fox Digital previously reported.
"Mr. Trump, I'm so, so grateful for you to bring me home and for [the] American government. And I never felt more blessed to be American, and I'm so, so happy to get home," Karelina said in a video posted by Trump deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka on April 11 upon her return to the U.S.
A White House official confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that Karelina will visit the White House on Monday afternoon.
Karelina, who is a U.S. citizen, was born in Russia and had been living and working in Los Angeles at the time of her arrest. She was visiting her family in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2024 when Russia's Federal Security Service – the country's top security agency – inspected her phone and found she donated about $50 to a U.S.-based charity that works to aid Ukraine, Fox Digital previously reported.
She was initially detained for "petty hooliganism," but the charge was later upgraded to treason as Russian officials claimed she raised money for the Ukrainian army and took part in actions that supported Ukraine while in the U.S.
Karelina was returned to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. releasing Arthur Petrov, a dual German Russian citizen who was accused of exporting sensitive U.S. electronics to the Russian military. He was arrested in 2023 and charged with crimes such as conspiracy and violating export controls, Reuters previously reported.
Karelina's family celebrated her release last month, with her former stepmother Eleonra Srebroski telling Fox News at the time that she was "euphoric" over the prisoner swap while praising Trump for the release.
"My spirit is high. We are extremely happy. This is beyond any emotion…This is healing," Srebroski said. "We were putting a lot of hope in the Trump administration, and we knew she would be next after Marc Fogel. We support Trump even more."
Karelina's boyfriend, Chris Van Heerden, told the New York Post upon her release in April that the couple was eager to meet Trump and thank him.
"We really need to thank him personally. When the time's right, she'd love to meet him and I would love to shake his hand for bringing back the love of my life. And I'm not into politics," Van Heerden told the outlet at the time.
"I was begging the Biden administration for a whole year to bring Ksenia back. About seven months I realized that's not going to happen. They're not going to do it for me. I had faith and I truly believed when President Trump came into power, he could do it and he did it," he added.
Karelina's release follows the Trump administration striking another prisoner swap deal with Russia in February that saw the release of U.S. citizen and teacher Marc Fogel, who had been in Russian custody since 2021 when he was arrested for possession of marijuana at an airport.