A Russian court has sentenced amateur ballerina KSENIA KARELINA to 12 years in jail for treason for donating 51 dollars to a charity supporting Ukraine.

KARELINA, who dual citizenship of America and Russia, pleaded guilty last week after a trial held behind closed doors.

She was arrested during a family visit last January in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km east of Moscow.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year jail term. The court in Yekaterinburg found her guilty of high treason and sentenced her to imprisonment in a general regime penal colony.

Russian human rights activists said while living in the US she had made a single transfer of 51.80 dollars on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022 discovered in her phone.