Russia arrests dual US citizen for Ukraine-linked ‘treason’
Al Jazeera
The woman is accused of raising funds that benefitted the Ukrainian armed forces.
Russia’s internal security and intelligence agency has arrested a woman who holds dual Russian and United States nationality in the Ural district for committing “treason” by raising funds for Ukraine.
The Federal Security Service (FSB) in the city of Yekaterinburg took into custody the unnamed woman, identified only as a 33-year-old resident of Los Angeles, state media reported on Tuesday.
She “was involved in providing financial assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of our country”, said a statement by the security agency carried by Russian media.
It said since February 2022, she was “proactively collecting money” for a Ukrainian organisation that would ultimately benefit the Ukrainian armed forces in the form of purchase of “tactical medicine items, equipment, weapons and ammunition”.
The woman had also allegedly taken part in multiple public demonstrations in the US in support of Ukraine, which is financially and militarily backed by a Western coalition after Russia invaded it in February 2022.
