‘I DON’T THINK IT’S SAFE’

L.A. Woman Held in Moscow Jail for ‘Treason’ Was Cautioned Not to Visit Russia: Report

Ksenia Karelina was “publicly” arrested and has been enduring brutal interrogations for nearly two months, her employer says.

A Los Angeles woman snatched up by Russian authorities on treason charges while visiting her family in the country has been enduring brutal 13-hour interrogations for nearly two months, her employer told The Daily Mail. Ksenia Karelina was arrested when she arrived in Moscow on Jan. 2 and immediately “interrogated for 13 hours,” according to her friend and employer Isabella Koretz. “She’s not a politician, she’s an aesthetician,” Koretz said of the 32-year-old, who holds joint Russian-American citizenship. Russia’s FSB made a public spectacle of her arrest, charging her with “high treason” for allegedly donating just over $50 to a nonprofit group aiding Ukraine. Koretz said she had begged Karelina not to visit Russia: “I said please don’t go, I don’t think it’s safe, don’t go. She’s like, No, I really want to go. We agreed just for two weeks.” The last message Karelina’s friends received, Koretz said, was her asking them “to close out for all her affairs here, to pay all the credit card bills and to sell her car because she doesn’t know when she’s coming back.” A Yekaterinburg native, Karelina reportedly worked at a ballet theater in Baltimore before moving to Los Angeles, where she had been working at a spa.