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Karelina, who was born in Russia but had built a new life as an
aesthetician at a Los Angeles spa after immigrating to the
United States over a decade ago, faces a sentence of 12 years to
life in prison if found guilty.
Her trial will be held behind closed doors, as is customary in
such cases in Russia. Treason acquittals are rare there.
The court in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg published a short
video of Karelina sitting in a glass cage, wearing jeans and a
green plaid shirt. She smiled faintly as reporters snapped
photographs.
A notice on the website of the court posted later on Thursday
said the trial had been adjourned until Aug. 7. It did not state
a reason.
At least a dozen Americans are currently jailed in Russia, part
of a growing list of foreign nationals who have found themselves
caught up in the crisis of relations between Moscow and
Washington during the Ukraine war.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) detained Karelina in
January while she was visiting her parents and young sister in
Yekaterinburg.
Her former mother-in-law, Eleonora Srebroski, told Reuters in
February that Karelina had travelled home around the New Year
after her boyfriend surprised her with a plane ticket.
She had assured her boyfriend that Russia was "safe" and that he
had no reason to fear her travelling there, according to
Srebroski.
Initially arrested under a minor "petty hooliganism" statute,
Karelina was later charged with treason.
Srebroski said Karelina had made a small donation to Razom for
Ukraine, a New York-based nonprofit that sends non-military
assistance to the country, invaded by Russian forces in 2022 in
what Moscow called a special military operation.
Karelina, who is in her early thirties, arrived in the U.S. in
2012 via a work-study program and was briefly married to
Srebroski's son. Her ex-husband has described her as a
fun-loving woman who didn't care much for politics.
Karelina's social media profiles feature photos of herself and
friends on the beach and on trips, but without political
messaging.
One photo from November 2021 shows her in a long dress, smiling
and waving a small American flag, with the caption,
"Citizenship".
(Reporting and writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Andrew
Osborn and Mark Heinrich)
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