Ksenia Karelina was found guilty of treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine.

A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina Ksenia Karelina to 12 years in jail for treason for donating $51 (£39) to a charity supporting Ukraine.

Karelina, who has American and Russian citizenship, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

  • @mysticpickle@lemmy.caEnglish
    18•9 months ago

    Great. Can we stop trading for idiots that willingly go to Russia already? I’m pretty sure our supply of captured Russian arms dealers and assassins is running pretty low by now.

  • @gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    -6•9 months ago

    …why would you be a Russian/US dual citizen? I thought both nations were not down with that, particularly with respect to each other, so I doubt it’s even technically legal.

    • VindictiveJudgeEnglish
      12•9 months ago

      Abandoning citizenship usually requires jumping through hoops, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had to return to Russia to file the paperwork.

      In other instances, though, it’s actually really easy to inherit multiple citizenship, especially if one of those is American. You’re automatically an American citizen if you were born in the US or if either of your parents was an American citizen at the time of your birth. Additionally, anyone born to two Russian parents is automatically a Russian citizen, or if they were born in Russia to at least one Russian parent. So if a Russian couple who went to America after the USSR collapsed but didn’t bother renouncing their citizenship and then had kids, those kids would have both Russian and American citizenship. Alternatively, if an American citizen went to the Russian Federation and had a child with a local, the child would also have dual citizenship.

      • CadeillacEnglish
        10•9 months ago

        return to Russia

        There could be numerous reasons for her to want to return to or be in Russia. Family is the first thing to come to mind

      • JohnEdwaEnglish
        1•9 months ago

        You can be an American with Russian ancestry, and you can even apply and get US citizenship as a Russian citizen, but Russia doesn’t legally recognise US dual citizenships at all. In fact, they only recognise it with two countries, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.
        And if an American wanted to get a Russian citizenship, they would be required to renounce their American citizenship first - at least that was the case for a long time, I remember reading there being some work removing that requirement.
        But you would still be seen only as Russian when in Russia.