From the Moscow Times:
“From Whelan to Karelina: The
Americans Held in Russian Prisons”
Russia’s Federal Security Service
(FSB) announced Tuesday that a dual U.S.-Russian citizen was arrested in the
city of Yekaterinburg on charges of “financially assisting a foreign state in
activities directed against [Russian] security.” The detainee was later
identified by news agencies as 33-year-old Ksenia Karelina, a native of
Yekaterinburg who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2021 and lives in Los Angeles. Karelina is now one of several U.S. citizens
currently held in the Russian prison system, most of whom are waiting to be
released via a prisoner swap. Moscow has
been accused of targeting U.S. citizens to use as leverage to secure the
release of its own nationals held by Washington.
Here is more about them:
Paul Whelan
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan
worked in security for a U.S. vehicle parts company when he was detained on
spying allegations in a Moscow hotel room in 2018. In 2020, the ex-Marine was sentenced to 16
years in prison on espionage charges, though he maintains that the evidence
against him was falsified. Whelan, 53, is currently serving his sentence in a
maximum-security penal colony in the republic of Mordovia in Russia’s Volga
region. The ex-Marine has complained of being physically assaulted by prison
staff and a fellow inmate. Whelan, who
also holds U.K., Irish and Canadian passports, said last year that he feels
“abandoned” by Washington after being left out of recent prisoner swaps. "With each case, my case is going to the
back of the line. They've kind of just left me in the dust. And at this point,
this juncture, it's very concerning," Whelan told the BBC.
Marc Fogel
Marc Fogel, a former U.S. teacher
and diplomat, was detained in August 2021 while passing through customs at
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. Russian customs officers claimed to have found
11 grams of marijuana and eight grams of hash oil in his luggage. In June 2022,
a Moscow court sentenced Fogel to 14 years in a maximum-security prison on
charges of large-scale drug acquisition, manufacture, smuggling and possession.
Fogel, 62, pleaded guilty to some of the
charges but denied intent. Fogel, who
suffers from chronic back pain, maintained that the marijuana was prescribed to
him by a U.S. doctor after a spinal surgery and that he was unaware of Russia’s
ban on medicinal cannabis. The teacher’s
family has repeatedly called on the U.S. State Department to classify him as
“wrongfully detained.” a designation they believe could increase the chances
for the release of Fogel, whose case has been likened to that of U.S.
basketball star Brittney Griner.
Evan Gershkovich
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested during a reporting trip to Yekaterinburg in March
2023. Russian officials claim that Gershkovich, an accredited Moscow-based
reporter, tried to obtain classified defense information for the U.S.
government. However, no evidence of these allegations has been made public in
nearly a year since his arrest. The Wall
Street Journal, U.S. officials and Gershkovich himself have all rejected the
espionage allegations. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin told former
Fox News star Tucker Carlson that he would like to see Gershkovich released as
part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States and that talks
between the two countries were ongoing. Putin suggested that he wanted to see
Vadim Krasikov, a suspected FSB agent jailed in Germany for assassinating a
Chechen dissident, swapped for Gershkovich. Gershkovich, a former reporter for The Moscow
Times, is currently held in detention at Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison.
If convicted, he could spend up to 20 years in prison.
Alsu Kurmasheva
Kurmasheva, a journalist for
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was arrested in November 2023 for
failing to register as a "foreign agent" and later hit with
additional criminal charges over alleged violation of Russia’s wartime censorship
laws. Kurmasheva, a dual Russian-U.S.
citizen who resided in the Czech Republic with her husband and two children,
was detained in Kazan, the capital of the republic of Tatarstan, when visiting
her elderly mother. The journalist’s
employer, family and lawyers have denied all charges against Kurmasheva. "Russian authorities are conducting a
deplorable criminal campaign against the wrongfully detained Alsu
Kurmasheva," RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in February after a
Russian court ruled to extend the journalist’s detention. Capus added that
Kurmasheva had been "imprisoned and treated unjustly simply because she is
an American journalist." Kurmasheva’s employer and family have repeatedly
called on the U.S. government to declare her “wrongfully detained.” If
convicted, Kurmasheva could face up to 15 years in prison.
Robert Romanov Woodland
Woodland, a dual U.S.-Russian
citizen who worked as an English teacher in Moscow, was arrested in January and
accused of the "illegal acquisition, storage, transportation, manufacture
and processing" of drugs. He would face 10-20 years in prison if convicted.
According to Interfax, police caught Woodland purchasing 4.5 grams of an
unidentified drug with the intent of selling it later. He was reportedly found
in possession of the synthetic narcotic mephedrone. Woodland, 32, was born in
the Russian city of Perm but adopted by an American family at age 2, he told
the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid in a 2020 interview. Woodland told Komsomolskaya Pravda that he had
wonderful adopted parents in the U.S. but moved to Russia to find his birth
mother. They were eventually reunited on Russian state television.
Ksenia Karelina
Karelina, an aesthetician and
manager at a spa salon in Beverly Hills, was initially detained in
Yekaterinburg on Jan. 27 and sentenced to 14 days in jail on charges of
“hooliganism,” according to legal rights group Perviy Otdel. Before she could make it out of the detention
facility, Karelina was ordered to two months of pre-trial detention on
suspicion of committing treason. According
to Perviy Otdel, the charges against Karelina are based on a $51.80 donation to
human rights charity Razom for Ukraine that she made in February 2022 from her
U.S. bank account. Karelina, who has been living in the U.S. for over a decade,
traveled to her native Yekaterinburg to visit family, her employer said. If found guilty of treason, Karelina could
face up to 20 years in prison.
^ Sadly, little to nothing is
being done by the US Government (Biden, Congress, the State Department, etc.)
to help our Citizens. ^
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