Freed ballerina Ksenia Karelina arrives in US after release from Russian penal colony in prisoner swap

 A Russian-American woman freed by Moscow arrived back in the United States late Thursday as part of a prisoner swap completed as the two countries aim to repair ties.A plane carrying Ksenia Karelina landed around 11 p.m.at Joint Base Andrews, where she was greeted by her fiancé.Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, presented her with a bouquet.She was released earlier in the day in exchange for a Russian-German man who’d been jailed in the US on smuggling charges.Karelina was arrested in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg in February 2024 and convicted of treason on charges stemming from a donation of about $52 to a charity aiding Ukraine.US authorities have called the case “absolutely ludicrous.”“They released the young ballerina and she is now out, and that was good.

So we appreciate that,” President Donald Trump said at a Cabinet meeting Thursday.He said the release followed conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Arthur Petrov was released as part of the swap in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, according to the Federal Security Service, or FSB, Russia’s main security and counterintelligence agency.Petrov was arrested in Cyprus in August 2023 at the request of the US on charges of smuggling sensitive microelectronics to Russia and extradited to the US a year later.Karelina was among a growing number of Americans arrested in Russia in recent years as tensions between Moscow and Washington spiked over the war in Ukraine.Her release is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner exchanges Russia and the US carried out in the last three years — and the second since Trump took office and reversed Washington’s policy of isolating Russia in an effort to end the war in Ukraine.CIA Director John Ratcliffe hailed “the CIA officers who worked tirelessly to support this effort.” The CIA also emphasized that “the exchange shows the importance of keeping lines of communication op...