Russia’s Federal Security Service headquarters in Moscow. The FSB said Tuesday its branch in Sverdlovsk Region, 1,120 miles east of Moscow, had arrested a 33-year-old American woman on suspicion of illegally “providing financial assistance to a foreign state [Ukraine] in activities directed against the security of our country. File Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky
A woman with dual U.S.-Russian citizenship has been arrested on suspicion of treason for raising money to support Ukraine’s armed forces, Russia’s counterintelligence agency said Tuesday.
The unnamed 33-year-old woman from Los Angeles was arrested by the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, in the city of Yekaterinburg 1,120 miles east of Moscow for illegally “providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of our country,” Russian state-run news agency TASS reported Tuesday. Advertisement
“Since February 2022, she proactively collected money in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organizations, which was subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine items, equipment, weapons and ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” TASS quoted the FSB as saying.
The complaint also states the woman participated in public demonstrations in the United States in support of the “Kyiv regime.”
Having launched a criminal investigation on grounds of a crime under high treason laws, the FSB said its office for the Sverdlovsk Region had detained the suspect as a preventive measure, pending ongoing operational search activities and investigative actions.
The Article 275 Russian Criminal Code offenses she is accused of could see her imprisoned 12 to 20 years if she is found guilty. Advertisement
She is being held under a pre-trial custody order in line with previous arrests involving dual and foreign nationals.
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow and State Department did not immediately offer a statement on the case.
Russia is holding or has jailed a number of other U.S. citizens including former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan who is serving a 16-year sentence and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who was arrested in March.
Both men are accused of engaging in espionage.
In January, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Whelan’s sister after the Kremlin rejected recent U.S. proposals to free him.
However, hopes for Gerskovich’s release were raised recently after Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. television journalist Tucker Carlson in an unprecedented broadcast interview that he could be released in a prisoner swap with the United States.
In the Feb. 8 interview with the former Fox News host, Putin suggested that Gershkovich, who faces 20 years in jail, could be freed “if our partners take reciprocal steps.”
