Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina has pleaded guilty to treason charges after she was arrested for donating money to a charity supporting Ukraine.
Russian prosecutors are seeking a 15-year sentence after the security services accused Ms Karelina of collecting money that was used to purchase tactical supplies for the Ukrainian army.
She was detained by authorities in Yekaterinburg, about 1,600km (1,000 miles) east of Moscow after a family visit in February.
The sentence comes one week after Russia and the West carried out the largest prisoner exchange since the Cold War, where 24 people jailed in seven different countries were exchanged.
Ms Karelina’s lawyer said the prosecutors’ request for a 15-year sentence in a penal colony was too severe as the defendant had cooperated with the investigation.
Mikhail Mushailov also said it was “impossible” for Ms Karelina to have been included in the recent prisoner exchange, because an exchange can only happen once the court verdict comes into force.
That’s a horrible take. Most people don’t care about whether things are legal, they care about whether things are morally right.
I’ll note that I don’t have a legal background, so the following is largely intuition.
Law is usually supposed to codify moral behavior. It’s a way to help different people talk about right/wrong and help them share moral concepts. So far, so good. However, not only does law fall short in terms of codifying moral behavior quite frequently, we also start from our morals and cross-check whether law aligns with those.
That sounds right at first, but you fail to realise that morality is not an objectively measurable unit. Whose morality should apply to everyone? Yours? Mine? The Russian ones? Why?
In this case, I am obviously going to use my own morality (which does appear to match what other people in this sub think). I can only judge the world through my own eyes anyway. I am very far removed from knowing what any one Russian citizen might think regarding this case.
Lol, my dude. She is an American citizen who donated to an American NGO while in America. It’s not a crime, as the actions were legal in the jurisdiction of the state where it happened.
Russia is just creating a legal farce that is not concurrent with international law, or their own legal code. According to your own argument your claims are just a pile of internal contradictions.
Welcome to the fun rabbit hole of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterritorial_jurisdiction
Thank you for speaking openly and consistently.
Not every government or company is going to have the same approach to morality, laws, ethics, fairness.
People who don’t like abusive governments - great, I understand, let’s build systems to resist government abuse.
People who want more government control over everything, ok, I dont agree, but I can see the benefits and the view point.
People who hate abusive governments externally, but want more centralized power where they live… Surprises me with the contradictory viewpoints.